What does your Council recommend?
Backed by strong public support, South Hams District Council firmly rejects the Boundary Committee’s proposals to create a giant unitary council for Devon, excluding Torbay and Plymouth. It also rejects the option of a separate unitary for Exeter and Exmouth.
There is no clear case for a unitary Devon.
Your council recommends keeping the present system of district, parish and county councils across the county but with a commitment for all three levels to work together to improve services and reduce costs under the ‘Integrated Devon’ banner. That is what we mean by ‘status quo’ because despite our excellent rating by external auditors we realise that in working with others we can achieve economies of scale whilst keeping democracy local.
The ‘Integrated Devon’ initiative was started some time ago by the Devon districts and the county council. It divided Devon into three clusters of authorities for delivering both county and district services – acknowledging even then that Devon is too large to successfully operate many services on a county-wide basis.
An early step was the creation of shared management posts to reduce costs. Procurement initiatives through a joint service across South Devon have already created efficiency savings of £400,000. A new integrated Civil Parking Enforcement service has been set up at much reduced cost. Many more dramatic initiatives were put on the back burner because of the Boundary Committee’s review.
If the ‘integrated’ arrangements were allowed to continue, it would save both the huge transition costs and the inevitable disruption caused by such a large-scale change.
For more information view the full press release issued on 26.09.08
This represents the almost unanimous and cross-party views of the Council. Alternative views can be found at www.devon.gov.uk and www.boundarycommittee.org.uk
