Northamptonshire County Council

Northamptonshire County Council
Type
Type	Non-metropolitan county council of Northamptonshire
Leadership
Leader	Matt Golby, Conservative Since 2018
Deputy Leader	Cecile Irving-Swift, Conservative Since 2018
Structure
Seats	57 councillors
Political groups	Administration      Conservative (43)      Labour (11)      Liberal Democrat (2)      Independent (1)
Length of term	4 years
Elections
Voting system	First past the post
Last election	4 May 2017
Next election	May 2021
Website
www.northamptonshire.gov.uk

Northamptonshire County Council is the county council that governs the non-metropolitan county of Northamptonshire in England. It was originally formed in 1889 by the Local Government Act 1888. The county is divided into 57 electoral divisions, which return a total of 57 councillors. The council has been controlled by the Conservative Party since 2005. The leader of the county council until her resignation in 2018 was Heather Smith, who had been elected to the post in May 2016.^[1] The headquarters of the council is County Hall in Northampton.

As a non-metropolitan county council, the council is responsible for education, social services, libraries, main roads, public transport policy and fire services, trading standards, waste disposal and strategic planning.

In early 2018, the Council announced it was effectively insolvent. Subsequently, a report by Government Inspectors concluded that problems at the council were so deep-rooted that it should be abolished and replaced by two smaller authorities. To save money, Northamptonshire Council is planning to cut services regardless of the impact, and the cuts will affect groups such as vulnerable children.^[2] Some of the proposed cuts have been found unlawful by the courts.^[3]

History

Northamptonshire County Council was first formed in 1889 as a result of the Local Government Act 1888, covering Northamptonshire, with the exceptions of the borough of Northampton, which became a county borough, and the Soke of Peterborough, which was made its own administrative county. This arrangement changed in 1974 when, following the Local Government Act 1972, a newly constituted Northamptonshire County Council was formed for the non-metropolitan county of Northamptonshire. First elections to the new authority were in April 1973, and the council took office on 1 April 1974.

From its recreation in 1974, the county council has administered the entire ceremonial county of Northamptonshire, including Northampton. This does not include the area of the Soke of Peterborough, which has been included in the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire since 1974. During 1990s local government reform, Northampton tried to obtain unitary authority status, but failed.^[4] Northamptonshire now has three tiers of local government: the county council; seven lower-tier councils, comprising four borough councils (Corby, Kettering, Northampton, Wellingborough) and three district councils (Daventry, East Northamptonshire, South Northamptonshire); and more than 250 parish councils.

Governance

Northamptonshire County Council has operated executive arrangements in the form of a Leader and Cabinet system since 2001. In December 2008, the council chose to adopt the revised Executive Leader and Cabinet arrangement.

The Council is currently composed of 57 councillors, each representing a single-member division. Elections are held every four years; the next election is due to take place in 2021.

Districts and Boroughs

Northamptonshire has three tiers of local government: the county council, seven district or borough councils, and over 200 parish councils. In urban areas, the work of the parish council is likely to be undertaken by the county or district council. The seven district councils in Northamptonshire are:

• Corby Borough Council
• Daventry District Council
• East Northamptonshire District Council
• Kettering Borough Council
• Northampton Borough Council
• South Northamptonshire District Council
• Borough Council of Wellingborough

These district councils are responsible for local planning and building control, local roads, council housing, environmental health, markets and fairs, refuse collection and recycling, cemeteries and crematoria, leisure services, parks, and tourism.

Political control

Political control of the non-metropolitan county has been held by the following groups:

The council comprised 57 councillors representing the county. Each councillor typically served for a four-year term, representing an electoral ward. Each ward elects one councillor by the first past the post system of election. The composition of the county council, following the 2017 election, was 43 Conservative councillors, 12 Labour councillors, and 2 Liberal Democrat councillors. The next election is to take place in May 2021.

Insolvency

Early in 2018 the county council announced that it "was effectively insolvent."^[6]

In March 2018, a government-appointed investigator’s report into financial and management failures at the authority recommended the council be broken up. It said the problems at the council were so deep-rooted that it was impossible to rescue it in its current form, and to do so “would be a reward for failure”. It recommended that ministers send in a team of external commissioners to take over the day-to-day running of the council until it can be broken up and replaced with two new smaller authorities. The report rejected the council leadership’s claim that it had been disadvantaged by government funding cuts and underfunded. It condemned the council’s attempt to restructure services by outsourcing them to private companies and charities (the Next Generation Programme). It described the council's budgeting as “an exercise of hope rather than expectation”.^[7]

Subsequently the council's Leader, Heather Smith, resigned.^[7] Robin Brown, Councillor with the finance brief was later sacked. ^[8]

To save money, Northamptonshire Council was planning to cut services even for vulnerable people including vulnerable children.^[2] Austerity measures are blamed for the insolvency, as is the council's refusal to raise council tax despite the rising costs of providing social services. For half a decade the council used 'accounting ruses' and used financial services inappropriately. In future the council is to provide the legal minimum of services, focused on the most vulnerable—though it is unclear what the minimum will be, or how vulnerable people will be required to be to receive services. The council must find savings of £70m out of its £441m budget during the coming few months, and further savings of £54m during 2019-20.^[9]

Cuts are being considered for children's services, adult services (investigating learning difficulties, fees, charges and NHS contributions), road maintenance and transport (including school buses), waste management, and culture; staff redundancies are also being considered.^[10] There are to be planned widespread cuts to jobs and services, owing to a funding shortfall of £70m.^[11] Proposed cuts to Northamptonshire's library service were challenged in court. A judge reminded the councillors that they have a statutory duty to provide a comprehensive and efficient library service. The judge ruled that the council had not put enough time and effort into establishing whether the reduced service would meet their statutory duties, and ruled the cuts could not currently go ahead as proposed.^[3] The cuts are causing hardship to some families with special needs.^[12]

The budget cuts proposed in August 2018 are intended to save £70m from the £441m budget in 2018 and an additional £54m savings in 2019-20. As a result, the council expected to be able to provide only the "bare legal minimum of service, focused only on the most vulnerable residents ... No services will go unscathed, even in priority areas like child protection".^[9]

Some of the responsibility for the de facto bankruptcy (Section 114) of Northamptonshire must be accepted by the council, according to The Guardian which described "a reckless half-decade in which it refused to raise council tax to pay for the soaring costs of social care, preferring to patch up budget holes with accounting ruses and inappropriate use of financial reserves".^[9] Some observers, such as Simon Edwards of the County Councils Network, added another perspective on the cause of the financial crisis, discussing the United Kingdom government austerity programme. "It is clear that, partly due to past failings, the council is now having to make some drastic decisions to reduce services to a core offer. However, we can’t ignore that some of the underlying causes of the challenges facing Northamptonshire, such as dramatic reductions to council budgets and severe demand for services, mean county authorities across the country face funding pressures of £3.2bn over the next two years." Andrew Gwynne, the shadow secretary of state for communities and local government, provided this comment. "Government cuts are pushing our councils into crisis, and the crisis in Northamptonshire is the canary in the coal mine. Despite one of their own councils effectively declaring themselves bankrupt twice this year, we have yet to see [the] government recognise the appalling consequences of their austerity programme for people up and down the country". ^[13]

See also

• 2019 structural changes to local government in England

References