Angela Rayner, who is the Deputy Prime Minister and also in charge of housing and local government, has introduced a bold plan to make big changes to how councils work in England. She wants to scrap more than 100 local councils over the next four years and replace them with bigger, combined councils called unitary authorities. Her reason for doing this is to make local services run more smoothly and efficiently by cutting out the confusion and extra costs that can come from having two levels of local government—county councils and district councils.
But her plan has sparked serious concerns. Lord Gary Porter Fuller, a Conservative peer who used to be the head of the District Councils Network, has warned that this idea could cost the country billions of pounds, not save money. He believes that getting rid of so many councils will lead to large numbers of top council officials losing their jobs, and those people could receive huge pay-outs and pensions funded by taxpayers.
He explained that the government didn’t seem to fully think through the financial side of the plan, especially the impact on public sector pensions. He warned that in their rush to make political changes and shake up areas traditionally held by Conservative councils, they might accidentally create a big financial problem. These changes could leave everyday people paying even higher council tax bills just to cover the cost of large pension packages for officials who are forced to leave their jobs.
To give an example, he said a senior council worker who started working after school and retires at age 55 could be entitled to a pension worth around £500,000. And if just 2,000 people across all councils fit that category, the total bill could be over £1 billion. This means that instead of saving money, the changes might end up costing more in the short term.
Lord Fuller added that while reorganising councils could eventually bring some savings, those savings might not matter if they’re eaten up by large lump-sum payments to a small group of people. So, all the effort to make things more efficient might be pointless if the final result is a financial loss.
A government spokesperson responded to the concerns by saying that nothing has been officially decided yet. They said that Angela Rayner’s plans are still in the early stages and that any changes will be decided locally, not forced on communities from above. The spokesperson also said the main goal of the changes is to help working families by saving money and putting more back into public services like schools, healthcare, and local infrastructure.
But despite that reassurance, many people are worried that the real cost of these changes might fall on taxpayers. Critics believe that the government needs to be more careful and do proper planning before making such big decisions that could have long-lasting effects on both council workers and the public.
