District councils to be abolished in new ‘Unitary’ proposal

A proposal to abolish all six councils in Oxfordshire and create one new ‘unitary’ council for Oxfordshire has been published by Oxfordshire County Council.

John Cotton, the current Leader of South Oxfordshire District Council

Oxfordshire County Council has stated that two independent studies, by Grant Thornton and PwC, it commissioned, and the district councils themselves, estimate that amalgamating related services would save £100m over the first five years – money that could be spent on improving public services and keeping council tax down.

The statement published today goes on to say: “Central government is changing the way councils are funded, and councils will soon have to pay for services mainly from council tax and business rates. Unless local government is reorganised, Oxfordshire councils will not be able to pay for vital public services for local communities and vulnerable people as the population increases and gets older.”

Oxfordshire currently has a two-tier local government – a county council plus five district and city councils.

Back in September, 2016, SODC’s official response to a suggestion then of a single unitary authority was that three authorities would be their preferred model (See LINK ) but today, the Leader of SODC, John Cotton tweeted: “I’ve long believed that unitary councils are better placed to deliver services than current arrangements.

“However, we must be certain that proposals for something new actually amount to change rather than just creating an excuse to kick difficult decisions into the long grass. Also, it’s important that the analysis of current problems is accurate; we need to know what’s broken before setting out to fix it.”