Leatherhead Matters

The Summer edition of ”Mole Valley News” - Official Mag of Mole Valley District Council (MVDC) has an article on page 115 titled “Let us Know What You Think”, which should be re-titled “Think Again - Because You Gave Us the Wrong Answer Last Time”! The article refers to a public consultation on the organisation & structure of MVDC.

Districts such as MVDC are responsible for leisure, environmental health, housing (including the provision of social housing and housing benefit) rubbish collection, and local roads & peddling Central Government propaganda. Counties are responsible for more “strategic” services such as education, libraries, main roads, social services, trading standards and transport.

There are currently 41 elected Mole Valley Councillors. One of their duties is to make policy decisions and the consultation is about the way MVDC structures itself to make these decisions. MVDC are consulting on 4  options about the structure of MVDV decison-making which briefly are:

1. A directly elected Mayor with a Cabinet
2. A Leader of the Council & a Cabinet (of 9 Councillors) 
3. A directly elected Mayor with a Council Manager
4. A Committe system (similar to current MVDC system)

The Council last consulted on these options in 2001 but, this obviously didn’t provide the “right” answer since the Council are repeating the same consultation.

  The real reason for this so called “consultation” lies in a Government White Paper  “Strong & Prosperous Communities”, published by Ruth Kelly last October (see it HERE ). The White Paper is full of spin  proposals about “reshaping” public services. There will be “Responsive Services & Empowered Communities, Effective Accountable & Responsive Local Government, Local Government as a Strategic Leader & Place Shaper (what?), Efficiency & Community Cohesion” …..phew!

As always the real issue is about cash.

Local councils are funded by a combination of central government grants, Council Tax, Business Rates, and charges from certain services including decriminalised parking enforcement. The proportion of revenue that comes from Council Tax is low, meaning that if a council wishes to increase its funding modestly, it has to put up Council Tax by a large amount. Central government retains the right to ‘cap’ Council Tax if it deems it to be too much. Council Tax is collected by the district-level council. Authorities such as , parish councils, county councils, fire & police authorities, can make a “precept”. This shows up as an independent element on council tax bills, but is collected by the district (eg MVDC)and funnelled to the precepting authority (eg Surrey County Council). (source info HERE).

The upshot of all this is that Central Government want to make Local Government ” more efficient” which is code for reduced funding but, want to make it look like Local Government will have more responsibility, more autonomy & more devolved power.

Now why would the “paymaster” concede more power to Local Authorities when it holds the purse strings? Instead of consulting on the options for funding Local Authorities, the Government is actually seeking to increase control over them so it can enforce spending cuts. It will be easier for example to influence a politically appointed mayor than 41 MVDC Councillors.

Of course you won’t hear any of this from MVDC or, Central Government, but until the “public consultation” comes up with the “right” answer, I predict we will hear increasing discussion about amalgamation of MVDC with other District Councils in Surrey……WATCH THIS SPACE!