Late last year the government published a White Paper setting out their plans for devolution and whole scale local government reorganisation right across the country.
In most cases, devolution means having an elected Mayor and moving some powers with the money to enact them from central government to a new Mayoral Combined Authority. Such as strategic transport, economic development and skills.
Local government reorganisation means creating new unitary authorities that are responsible for most local services. In Hampshire, we currently have a two-tier system, where the County Council is responsible for adult social care, children’s services, schools, roads, libraries & the tips and the Districts and Boroughs, like Test Valley, responsible for waste collection, planning, housing, leisure, licensing, parks and open spaces. As well as some of the critical, but non-statutory priorities, such as town centre regeneration and community grants.
Whilst I broadly welcome devolution as a mechanism for attracting more inward investment both from government and the private sector (with the Mayoralty most probably merging with the current Police and Crime Commissioner role anyway), I think local government reorganisation is an unwelcome distraction. Especially for authorities such as Test Valley, which has recently been inspected by the Local Government Association and have been found to be a high performing and community-centred organisation.
On the face of it, unitarisation looks attractive. There would be far less confusion about which council is responsible for what and there may be some efficiencies of scale. However, that doesn’t necessarily translate into cheaper council tax. (Our neighbouring Unitary, Wiltshire Council, for example, charge £1,805.73 per annum on an average band D property. Southampton’s is slightly more. Whereas the combined charge for Hampshire County Council and TVBC is £1,697.15*).
For me, the clear downsides are that the new larger authorities (a population of around 500,000 people rather than 130,000 in TVBC currently) will be more remote and less agile than the current district and boroughs, which I fear will make for much poorer local services. As an example; several residents contacted me recently about their bins that had been missed on one of our waste collection rounds. I was able to contact the appropriate person and the bins were emptied the very next day as Test Valley runs its own in-house waste collection service. It would be much more difficult to do this on a larger scale. Probably meaning contracting it out to the private sector and having much less control to sort out any problems.
My other major concern is the rising cost of adult social care and to some extent children’s services, which currently makes up around 85% of the County Council’s budget. This has led to Hampshire having to make significant cuts to other services. Being a separate organisation, Test Valley’s services have been protected from that and we are already considering what to do to fill the gap left by the County Council’s decision to end homelessness support in March 2026. The proposed changes mean that all services, including those that Test Valley currently provide will come under increased pressure and in some cases potentially disappear.
My view, therefore, is that the government are going about this the wrong way around. The problem of how social care is delivered and funded should be tackled first before potentially sacrificing more local government services. This is not a party-political point. My party should have done much more whilst in government to reform social care, but it is disappointing that the current government have recently confirmed that they are setting up yet another commission to look at this, which doesn’t report until 2028.
The government have been clear though that local government doesn’t have a choice but to accept these changes. I am, therefore, of the view that it is incumbent on me and all councillors to try and make the best of the situation that confronts us for the benefit of local residents – and I have attended a number of briefing sessions with government ministers and held discussions with fellow council leaders.
At those sessions it was explained that there are three options:
1. To get in the fast lane for devolution, which means local government reorganisation comes after the setting up of the Mayoral Combined Authority rather than before, but both are inevitably closely linked.
2. We agree to progress Local Government Reorganisation as a priority, agreeing to submit new Council proposals by May.
3. We don’t agree to either of these paths. In which case the Government want plans for new councils lodged by September in any event and if we do not do that, then they will create the proposals for new Councils themselves and progress with those plans.
In January, all the Upper Tier authorities in Hampshire (The County, Southampton, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight) wrote a joint letter to government asking to pursue option one. It is now down to ministers to decide whether or not to place Hampshire in the priority programme for devolution and postpone the HCC elections scheduled for this May. This will enable the government to run a public consultation and set up the Mayoral Combined Authority. I have also been told that if Ministers agree to the proposal, then the election for a new Mayor of Hampshire would probably take place in May 2026.
I think this is the least worst option. It gives us the main prize of devolution but also gives us longer to think about how reorganisation might work and on what boundaries in a cross-party way. Giving time for residents to have their say too.
Crucially, option one also ensures that Test Valley would exist for at least another three years or more. Ensuring that we can continue to deliver on our town centre regeneration aspirations in both Andover & Romsey and other priority projects.
This is a time of change for those of us who have the privilege to be councillors or work in local government – and whilst I recognise that residents might consider this as us being overly concerned with structures – I wanted to set out the details so you are aware of what is going on. We are very much at the beginning of this journey – and I will continue to keep you informed.
*Made up of £1,533.24 from HCC and £163.91 from TVBC excluding police, fire and town and parish council precepts
Cllr. Phil North
Leader of the Test Valley Borough Council