| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
3 pm
The Minister for London and Construction (Mr. Nick Raynsford): I congratulate the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) on his success in the ballot. I am glad of the opportunity to respond--albeit briefly--to his points and to the representations that he and others have made to my Department about the number of councillors for Southend-on-Sea council once it obtains full unitary status in April.
I am a little surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman say that Southend-on-Sea does not have sufficient resources to perform its responsibilities as a unitary authority, and allege that it has been short-changed by Essex. The disaggregation of the authorities' budgets to allow for unitary status was carried out with the full involvement of all the Essex authorities, and agreed by all of them.
I have a letter dated 4 September from Mr. Andrews, Southend's borough treasurer, in which he states:
Many of the other issues that the hon. Gentleman raises are essentially local matters, and, as such, matters for the authority, but I will endeavour to address some of the key ones concerning education, social services, the fire service and the theatre, before dealing with the substantive issue of the number of councillors needed to enable the authority to discharge its new responsibilities as a unitary authority.
I was a little surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman allege that class sizes were too large, and that resources were insufficient for education in Southend. That is, of course, a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, but the figures available to me show that, in Southend, primary school total capacity is 14,246 and current pupil numbers are 13,570 and expected to increase to only 14,030. That implies continuing spare capacity in Southend primary schools.
I am informed that secondary school total capacity in Southend is 11,781 places. Current pupil numbers are 10,193, and are expected to increase to 10,776. The Southend shadow authority did not bid for additional places in the recent Department for Education and Employment annual capital guideline.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that there might be a shortfall in funding for social services, without referring to the additional £300 million for the national health service that was announced by the Government this autumn. We have made it clear that, where the need is for social care, funds should be transferred to local authorities. It is for health authorities locally to determine, in consultation with social services, the best use of resources between health and social services.
Fire service funding is, of course, a matter for my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and decisions on individual closures are a matter for the local fire authority. The proposed closure will have to be approved by the Home Secretary, and he will approve a closure only if the authority has consulted on it and my right hon. Friend is satisfied that national fire cover standards will be maintained.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about the Palace theatre. This is a matter for Eastern arts board and for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. That will need to be taken up with the relevant authorities. The hon. Gentleman also asked about the number of councillors. I have carefully considered the arguments and the letter from the chief executive of
Southend-on-Sea borough council to the Deputy Prime Minister. We will be responding to that letter shortly.
I am not persuaded by the arguments. In measuring the work load of local authorities, it is not the number of councillors that is pertinent but the number of electors each councillor represents. That is certainly the measure that is used by the Local Government Commission for England. The councillor to elector ratio in seven other unitary authorities is higher than that of Southend-on-Sea, and another three have a similar ratio.
One of the seven is Portsmouth, which has the same number of councillors as Southend--39--yet has a larger electorate by some 12,000. Southend does not have the highest ratio by a long way, and it is hard to see why it should take precedence in the programme of work that is currently in hand to look at the electoral arrangements in all authorities. I recognise that that may be disappointing for the hon. Gentleman, so it might help if I say a little about the review process and where we are today.
The Local Government Commission looked at the electoral arrangements in Southend-on-Sea as part of the structure review of all local authorities in England. It recommended unitary status for Southend. After receipt of the final report--which I understand had the support of the local authority, the Conservative party and the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (Sir T. Taylor) who represented the seat for many years, was mentioned by the hon. Gentleman and is widely respected--the previous Administration, I am sure, gave proper consideration to all the issues, including the fact that no change in relation to the electoral arrangements was proposed.
Despite the no doubt real, if transitional, pressures caused by the transfer to unitary status, we have no record of any other shire council seeking additional councillors. To our knowledge, no other authority has suggested that it needs more councillors solely because of its new responsibilities as a unitary authority. After all, one of the aims of the structure review, and one of the stated benefits of unitary status, is to reduce bureaucracy and improve the co-ordination and quality of services by streamlining arrangements and cutting out the duplication of effort and the inefficiencies that are sometimes involved in the two-tier process.
Local authorities being reorganised are expected to take the opportunity to improve efficiency and improve the quality and co-ordination of local services, thereby reducing bureaucracy. There should be scope for efficiency savings, although I recognise that much will depend on the approach that is adopted by local authorities and how they rise to the challenge.
It is right, of course, that these matters should not be set in stone. A programme of periodic electoral reviews is undertaken by the Local Government Commission for England, the independent body that is charged with undertaking such reviews. It is interesting to note that the intention of such reviews is to ensure that the ratio of electors to councillors should, as far as possible, be the same in every electoral area--
"There are no areas of disagreement between Southend and Essex County Council".
The hon. Gentleman admitted that he was new to Southend, but perhaps he should check his facts with the authority before making allegations in the House.
| Index | Home Page |