State of the South West 2008

Local Authorities

12.10 There are two different structures of governance in the South West. The two-tier structure sees responsibilities shared between a county council and its component district councils. There are also single-tier unitary authorities, where all services are the responsibility of one council.

There are 51 Local Authorities in the South West. Six of these are County Councils that between them contain a total of 35 District Councils. Outside of the county governance structure, the region also has 10 Unitary Authorities.

The 2006 Local Government White Paper invited councils in shire areas to bid for unitary status.  In December 2007, Communities & Local Government (CLG) announced five new unitary authorities, including Cornwall and Wiltshire in the South West.  These are expected to be up and running on 1 April 2009 so that, from that date there will be 12 unitary authorities and 4 county councils in the region, the latter containing a total of 25 districts.

A proposal for unitary status from Exeter did not meet the Government’s affordability criteria and has been referred to the Boundary Committee, who will look at the case for a unitary Exeter in the context of examining options for unitary arrangements in Devon as a whole.

12.11 As at May 2008, 3 of the 16 current county and unitary authorities have no overall political majority in terms of number of council seats. 17 of the 35 district councils also have no overall majority. The lack of an overall majority does not mean that there is a political stalemate, and the executive cabinets of many councils effectively share power between parties. Other councils have single party cabinets, even though that party does not hold a majority of seats.

12.12 Torbay is the only South West council among twelve in England that have a directly elected mayor (as at May 2008). The 2006 Local Government White Paper includes this as one of the three options for executive models, all with four-year terms. The other two options are a directly elected cabinet or a cabinet appointed by a leader elected by the council. 13 of the smaller South West districts operate a reformed committee system without a cabinet.

12.13 The table below shows the change in political majorities among local authorities in the South West over the past three years (ie: at the last four local election dates).  Over this period, the number of Conservative controlled councils has risen by four and now includes 6 of the 10 unitary authorities and 3 of the 6 county councils.