MILLIONS of pounds is being put aside to pay for a huge shake-up of councils in Worcestershire.
The existing county council and six district councils will be scrapped in 2028 and replaced by either one or two unitary authorities.
An announcement on whether Worcestershire gets one new council or two, covering the north and south of the county, is expected this month.
The government says its local government reorganisation (LGR) plan will save costs and reduce duplication of services in the long run, but could cost millions of pounds to implement initially.
CASH: Worcestershire County Council, led by Matt Jenkins, will stump of half of the cash for the transformation of the county’s councils (Image: Phil Wilkinson-Jones/LDRS)
Some money has been set aside centrally to set up the new unitary councils but there is a concern this won’t be enough.
Worcestershire’s councils are setting aside £20 million with Worcestershire County Council covering £10m and the districts – Worcester, Malvern Hills, Wychavon, Bromsgrove, Redditch and Wyre Forest – providing around £1.66m each.
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A joint statement on behalf of the seven Worcestershire councils said: “All councils across Worcestershire are working very closely together to prepare for Local Government Reorganisation (LGR).
“We will not know the full extent of implementation costs until the decision is made, which is still expected to be mid-July.
“As a partnership, we have agreed that the cost of LGR implementation would be funded 50 percent by the county council, with the remainder shared equally across the six district councils.
“At this point, we do not know whether there will be one or two unitary councils across Worcestershire.
‘Government grant not sufficient’
“The Government has announced a £63 million transition fund to support LGR, with a guaranteed minimum of £900,000 allocated to each new unitary authority.
“These implementation grants are intended to assist with transition costs, effective service setup, and governance arrangements.
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“This will contribute to the cost of running of the county-wide elections in 2027 for the Shadow Authority/Authorities, the extensive set up work needed to ensure readiness for the takeover of all services in April 2028, and various third-party costs such as software licences.
“However, the Government’s grant will not be sufficient under either model. Therefore, during budget setting for the existing Worcestershire councils, funding will need to be identified in advance of the ongoing savings that are expected to be delivered as a result of LGR by 2029/30.”
