Local Authority Reorganisation

Cutting 22 to 8 or 9, what do we think of this? More or less mirrors the LA landscape from pre-1996:



I don't think this goes far enough and we could go down to 7 or even 6 (Dyfed and Powys and 1 North Wales LA) but a definite step in the right direction should this go ahead. Makes me wonder if Bridgend will move from ABMU to Cwm Taf Local Health Board wise, as that would open up the opportunity for social services to be integrated with the health service.

In regards to public sector rationalisation, there should be 1 police force and 1 fire service too.

Doesn't go far enough. Leighton Andrews' great vision is going back to the old system. I think Plaid said something this week about reducing them to 5 I think?

The move to a single police and fire service has been very controversial in Scotland. In effect, rural communities feel they are not a priority for the new national services, and the wrong kinds of policing methods are being used (due to the dominance of the old Strathclyde police force area in the new set up). Conversely, people in Glasgow think that their higher levels of police funding under the old system are now helping subsidise services elsewhere in the country. So not sure about such a merger.

I think one of the problems with the merged authorities is that they are about amalgomating existing authorities, rather than taking a more first-principles based approach to seeing what areas should be merged.

Might you want to put places like Church Village, Pontyclun, and maybe even Pontypridd and Caerphilly in with a Cardiff county? Would you then want a "Valleys" county with the rest of RCT and Caerphilly county, alongside Merthyr, Blaenau Gwent and northern Torfaen. Although that begs the question of what you'd do with Bridgend (not big enough on its own, but not a natural fit with either the Cardiff, Valleys, or Swansea counties).

I think you might also take Llanelli and parts of the old Dinefwr district and give them to Swansea, alongside some of south west Powys. Parts of North West Powys would probably go to Gwynnedd.

I would favour a Greater Cardiff based on the Cardiff Capital Region, possibly based on Greater Manchester.