East Suffolk "super district" council ~ an exercise in ignoring the voice of the people

If you responded to the "New single Council for East Suffolk" consultation before Christmas, you may have received a personal response, or you may not. Some respondents received detailed email replies to the points that they raised, while others had to make do with the initial acknowledgment sent by the council's email auto-responder saying that "If your message contained a question about the merger proposal we will respond as soon as possible".

Given that the Cabinets of Suffolk Coastal District Council and Waveney District Council voted unanimously on 23rd January to go ahead with the merger, the natural assumption would be that the majority of respondents must have been in favour of the new "super district" council for East Suffolk. But no. That is not the case. By the figures in the council's own analysis, the vast majority of respondents in the consultation were opposed to it.

The council has compiled all of the responses to the consultation into a single document (removing the names of respondents), and you can download it from http://www.eastsuffolk.gov.uk/assets/Your-Council/Consultation-Responses-merger-proposal.pdf. It makes for very interesting reading, with wide-ranging comments from people across the Suffolk Coastal area. The document ends with a summary of the position taken by respondents via different media:

• By email, 78 respondents were opposed to the merger, and only 11 were in favour.
• On Facebook, 60 respondents were opposed, and only 5 in favour.

In light of this, you might assume that the Cabinets' joint decision to proceed was based on the overwhelming support of Ward Members of the two district councils, outweighing the demonstrable objection of the public. But again, no, that appears not to be the case, if the report of the meeting is an accurate representation of the views and concerns of those present. District Councillors raised issues about how the projected cost savings were quantified, about Waveney's £13.6 million of debt, about the loss of local knowledge that would arise from District Councillors' wider geographical remit, about the differing nature of the two districts, about the need for strategy review, about the possible overestimation of potential savings, and so on.

For reasons of their own, unsubstantiated by firm information on how proposed cost savings are to be achieved, and unsupported by the public consultation that they themselves initiated, the Cabinet Members of the two district councils plough on with their plan to merge Suffolk Coastal and Waveney into the biggest district council in the country. So much for localism.

Sources:

http://apps.eastsuffolk.gov.uk/committeeminutes/readdocument.asp?docid=22114 ["Simultaneous Cabinet Minutes 23 January 2017", accessed 10 March 2017]

http://www.eastsuffolk.gov.uk/assets/Your-Council/Consultation-Responses-merger-proposal.pdf [accessed 10 March 2017]