Unitary Oxfordshire: Julie Mabberley of Wantage and Grove Campaign Group examines the pros and cons

THERE are 56 unitary authorities in England. Unitary authorities combine the powers and functions that are normally delivered separately by the county and district councils. These functions are housing, waste management, waste collection, council tax collection, education, libraries, social services, transport, planning, consumer protection, licensing, cemeteries and crematoria.

If Oxfordshire were to become a unitary authority it would have a higher population (665,000 in 2013) than any of the others in England. Cornwall is the largest with a population of 541,000. Next is County Durham with a population of 516,000. Nearer to us, Wiltshire is a unitary authority with a population of 480,000. Swindon is still a separate authority.

The majority of unitary authorities are based on sub-divisions of counties and some are cities or large towns.

In the last 12 months both Oxfordshire County Council and our five district councils have commissioned studies of how Oxfordshire could become one or more unitary authorities. These studies have cost around a quarter of a million pounds. Think how useful that money would be to children’s centres or services for the elderly.

The two firms performing the studies worked together to share data but both recommend structures based on the organisations which commissioned them.

The study prepared for the county council recommends that a county-wide unitary authority for Oxfordshire would be most likely to offer improved service outcomes for residents, communities and businesses, whilst protecting services to the most vulnerable.

The study prepared for the district councils proposes that there should be three unitary authorities which would be responsible for all local government services in their area. The three would be Northern Oxfordshire (combining Cherwell and West Oxfordshire), Oxford City and Southern Oxfordshire (combining the Vale and South Oxfordshire). There would also be a combined authority which would enable the leaders of the unitary authorities to work in partnership with the Local Enterprise Partnership (OxLEP) to co-ordinate and drive transformation and deliver the Oxfordshire Strategic Plan (as the Growth Board does now).

Unfortunately, it would appear that there is no consensus between the county and district/ city authorities as to what would be the most appropriate new structure and the process seems deadlocked.

How much more time and money will be spent on getting a consensus between existing authorities and a wider consultation of the residents of Oxfordshire? How different will Oxfordshire be in this new world?

Health services, children’s services, services for the elderly and transport services are all being cut while our councils 'work together' to determine how many councillors and council administrators we really need.

They don’t work together at the moment so any system which stops one council from blaming another council for not doing anything should be good. Perhaps unitary government will mean that only one group will be responsible.

At least it will be an elected body unlike OxLEP but then it won’t do away with OxLEP so an unelected quango is still going to decide the strategy for Oxfordshire in any scenario.