AS UNCERTAINTY grows about whether Carmarthenshire will survive as a unitary authority, Council Leader Kevin Madge has turned to Carmarthenshire’s electors to help preserve the status quo at County Hall.
With three months to go in the Welsh Government’s consultation on the future of local government in Wales, the Garnant representative has appealed to the public to make their feelings known about the benefits of retaining the council.
The possibility that Carmarthen could be subsumed into a larger authority or split between new local authority structures has begun to hit home as the authority bobs from controversy to controversy.
Citing the authority’s so-called ‘ten-year plan for housing’ in the county as a likely victim of any local government carve up, Cllr Madge claimed that Carmarthenshire was far ahead of other authorities. As this newspaper reveals elsewhere, however, the council has delivered precious little other than words to tackle a shortage of both social housing and affordable housing in the county.
Whether Public Services Minister Leighton Andrews will consider that the authority’s scandal-wracked recent past commends its preservation is, however, likely to prove decisive.
Carmarthenshire is among the council’s named by the Public Services Minister as being ‘officer-led’, as opposed to being member-led. There is little sign that the secretive and authoritarian council has done much in recent months to change the Minister’s view.
When the council came to debate the Welsh Government’s White Paper in March, there were predictable shrieks of horror from councillors fearful of losing their place on the gravy train, or, if one took a more charitable point of view, who wished to continue to serve their electors in the manner to which they had become accustomed.
However, speaking in 2014, Cllr Madge was bullish about the prospects of reorganisation affecting Carmarthenshire.
Referring to the previous Dyfed authority, he asked: “Why go back to what didn’t work? People thought that Dyfed was too far away, too remote from them and their communities. The Welsh Government has not got agreement from local government leaders on this at all and there’s a lot of water to pass under the bridge first.”
He continued to point out that the political future was uncertain: “We have a general election in 2015, Assembly elections in 2016 and a round of local government elections in 2017. Elections are unpredictable things and I would say that the reorganization the Welsh Government want is not a done deal.”
He continued to attack the idea that reorganisation would bring savings: “Let’s look at the suggestion that costs will be cut and savings made. Well, I suppose there might be savings at top levels, but people still need their councils to deliver important daily services. I am concerned that service jobs, which are already under pressure, will be cut and councils will no longer be able to deliver vital services to its communities.
“The cost of reorganization will be £300m to £400m. How will that be funded? That’s the question. I do not think that the people will accept that money being taken out of the budget to deliver services to them.”
He concluded: “I was a councillor in 1996 when the last reorganization took place. Any new structure will take five to eight years to ‘bed in’ and it could take eight to ten years for a new authority to fully get to grips with things. Things won’t improve overnight. Reorganization is not a magic wand.”
What adds particular piquancy to the dispute is that both Mr Madge and the Public Services Minister are in the same party.
Speaking to The Herald in February, Leighton Andrews told us: “We have a lot to say about the political leadership in the White Paper; including the way in which we think leaders should present a manifesto so that they can be held to the promises they make.”
Mr Andrews did not underestimate the size of the task he faces or the magnitude of the test ahead: “I would say on balance that most Council leaders would prefer the status quo. But I do not think that is a viable option.”
The Minister concluded: “I don’t think it will be an easy sell. There will be widespread public debate on the issue and the discussions that are ongoing will not be finished by the time of the next Assembly elections in 2016. There will need to be a consensus to move forward in the Assembly and that will require at least one other party to come on board with the Welsh Government, in my view.”
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