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The chairman of employers' body the CBI in Wales, Mike Plaut, has called for a radical reduction in the number of local authorities in Wales to just four.

Writing for WalesOnline, entrepreneur Mr Plaut said Wales can simply no longer afford the financial costs of the current model of 22 separate councils.

In the latest attempt from the Welsh Government to streamline the local authority map of Wales, against the backdrop of real term budget cuts and increasing demand on public services, Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services, Alun Davies, last month called on local authorities to bring forward voluntary merger plans - but with the stick that if they don't reorganise then change could be enacted upon them.

Out to consultation, Mr Davies' plans could see the number reduced by just over a half to 10.

But Mr Plaut has gone further than the previous position of the CBI, which suggested a reduction from the current 22 to around just 8, saying there should be just four.

These would be:

Cardiff Capital Region - covering the local authorities of Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan, Newport, Monmouthshire, Torfaen, Blaenau Gwent, Merthyr, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Caerphilly and Bridgend.

Swansea Bay City Region - covering local authorities of Swansea, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire.

Mid Wales - covering the local authorities Powys and Ceredigion.

North Wales - covering the six local authorities of Wrexham, Anglesey, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Gwynedd.

(Image: Creative Commons)

Mr Plaut's position, which at this stage is not the official stance of the CBI, is in recognition of the emergence of city regions in south Wales with the Cardiff Capital and Swansea Bay city regions - driven by their respective City Deals - and for mid Wales and north Wales, where respective Growth Deals bids have been made to the UK Government.

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Mr Plaut said: "With Brexit on the horizon, we need strong, dynamic and modern councils. In response to Mr Davies’ call for a debate, I believe the Welsh Government should seriously evaluate reducing the number of councils in Wales to four.

"This is already the direction of travel and such a structure could mirror the geographic context of the City Deals and emerging Growth Deals. The result would be: a council for south east Wales, south west Wales, mid Wales and north Wales.

"With four police force areas, three fire and rescue services, three regional skills partnerships and seven health boards, Wales has already shown this can be done.

"A council for south east Wales, for example, would have a population of around 1.4 million – similar to Birmingham. A mid Wales council would have a population of just 200,000 and north Wales over 600,000."

Mike Plaut's views in full

The issue of Welsh local government reorganisation has been a running sore in the Welsh national psyche for many years.

The plain truth is if we truly value local services, and the people that use them, we must prioritise frontline resources and this means reducing the number of separate local council administrations within without delay.

A small nation like Wales simply can no longer afford the financial costs of 22 separate councils.

Most now accept that the current arrangements for local government are no longer appropriate in the twenty-first century. We are currently seeing reduced local services and higher local taxes. It is the worst of both worlds.

It is understandably difficult for our politicians in the Assembly to have the political will to resolve this issue, with party politics appearing to interfere.

This is not something that just affects the party in power, but all parties find it difficult to make decisions that may reduce the number of elected councillors. In this context, the politicians who do seek to make changes should be supported.

I must stress the need to reduce the number of councils, is not a criticism of staff. Council staff do incredible work - from education and social services to local transport and environmental services.

We must do more to support them and a major part of the answer is to stop diverting funds away from frontline services to sustain twenty-two different administrative machines.

In the debate on local government, it has been suggested that tackling the governance arrangements cannot be done without undermining the delivery of services. This is clearly not the case.

Local government reform, if done right, could reduce administrative costs and redistribute that funding to sustain, innovate and improve services.

For example, according to the National Audit Office, one UK council reported that between 2009-10 and 2012-13 it made savings of £20m (equivalent to more than a 33% reduction in spend) through efficiency measures.

This included renegotiating its IT contract, sharing back office functions and reducing the number of council offices. In too many councils in Wales, because of a failure to grasp the nettle of local government reform, we are working hard to keep the lights on.

That isn’t a sustainable solution for either users or employees - nor is this a new debate. The Simpson Review in 2011 said that replicating functions and services 22 times in a country the size of Wales created unnecessary duplication.

In 2014, the Welsh Government’s Commission on Public Services Governance went on to recommend 10-12 local councils for Wales. Yet some four years later, not much has changed.

A year later from the Commission’s report, the Auditor General published “A Picture of Public Services in 2015.”

He stated that ‘while there are risks from local government reorganisation, there is scope for considerable benefits if councils use the opportunity of change to rethink and reshape services.”

He went on to quote a council chief executive who stated: “it is my firm conviction that local government reorganisation should happen by 2018… this is purely on the basis of final resilience.

If it does not, then I believe it is highly likely that there will be a major service/governance failure somewhere in Welsh local government by around 2018 – give or take.”

(Image: Huw Evans Picture Agency)

Fast forward to March 2018 and the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services Alun Davies AM called for a serious debate about local government structures.

There are three options the Welsh Government has proposed: voluntary mergers, a phases approach with early adopters, or a single merger programme.

While the leader of the Welsh Local Government Association accepts that 22 local councils is not a sustainable option, the response from the WLGA raised justifiable concerns around sufficient resources to reorganise properly. Local government must be reorganised, but councils need to be given the resources to get on with it and get it right first time.

None of this is easy Mr but Davies is right to have said to Welsh council leaders last month that :“I don’t mind you not wanting my route [of local government reform], but I do mind you not wanting any route at all.”

With Brexit on the horizon, we need strong, dynamic and modern councils. In response to Mr Davies’ call for a debate, I believe the Welsh Government should seriously evaluate reducing the number of councils in Wales to four.

This is already the direction of travel and such a structure could mirror the geographic context of the city deals and emerging growth deals. The result would be: a council for south east Wales, south west Wales, mid Wales and north Wales.

With four police force areas, three fire and rescue services, three regional skills partnerships and seven health boards, Wales has already shown this can be done.

A council for south east Wales, for example, would have a population of around 1.4 million – similar to Birmingham. A mid-Wales Council would have a population of just 200,000 and north Wales over 600,000.

There is no question that these structures would be feasibly possible. In England, there are 27 unitary authorities with over 200,000 residents and 4 with a population over 400,000.

Imagine the considerable savings that could be made to back office functions if there were four and not 22 versions of a local authority function?

Wales could lead the way, creating lean, efficient and effective councils with the critical mass to attract private sector investment and with the skills to achieve a step-change in service delivery.

We need less councillors too

At the same time, we could address the over-representation of councillors. At the moment, we have 1,264 councillors in Wales – more than they have in Scotland which has a population of over 5 million.

As the debate continues about increasing the number of Assembly Members from 60 to 80, it is the ideal opportunity to consider a suitable reduction in the number of councillors. Birmingham, with a population of about 1 million has just 120 councillors.

While a proper consultation and analysis would clearly have to be done, with four councils, Wales could half the number of councillors to around 600.

Above all else in this debate, let’s strive for a Wales which has local councils fit for the future, delivering services of scale and quality, freeing administrative resources to ensure that the citizens of Wales have services they can be proud of, and the people delivering these services are respected and valued.