Warning over shake-up timetable

The leader of Lancashire County Council says more time is needed to implement sweeping changes to local government – or else they will pose a risk to vulnerable residents.

Stephen Atkinson was speaking after the announcement on Thursday that ministers had chosen to slice Lancashire into four new council areas to replace the 15 that currently exist. The revamped set-up is due to come into force in April 2028. – but County Cllr Atkinson said he will be pressing for that date to be pushed back.

Each of the large new ‘unitary’ authorities will be responsible for delivering all council services in their area – including social care for adults and children, along with support for youngsters with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Under the present system, those services are delivered by the county council across most of Lancashire and the standalone Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen councils in their respective areas.

Creating a fourth council that will also have those responsibilities requires the establishment of a team to run them – including senior and specialist staff.

County Cllr Atkinson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that because Lancashire is only one of many counties in England going through a similar reorganisation, recruitment to those posts was likely to prove a challenge nationwide in the coming years.

“When you start splitting 21 counties [up], you’re creating a massive demand for those statutory roles – and there just aren’t the people who are trained [to fulfil them],” he said.

“Lancashire County Council and Blackpool and Blackburn with Darwen [councils] provide some of the most important care to some of the most vulnerable people. We need to make sure that [they] are safe.

”I think the government should be flexible [over the timetable] – and I want [then] to engage with Lancashire and listen.”

The Reform UK leader – who also heads his party’s group on the Local Government Association – added that there were other practical challenges looming in delivering the overhaul on what he believes is too tight a timescale.

“We’re talking about computer systems talking to each other, staff [being in post and] all of these complications.

“In 2023, the government split Cumbria into two [new councils]. To treat Lancashire as though [it can split into four] over that same timeframe is, in my mind, naive of government.

“We need more time to make sure this is done safely and legally. Otherwise, I think that there’s a risk to vulnerable adults and children,” County Cllr Atkinson said.

He would not be drawn on how much longer he wanted the government to grant to complete the shake-up in the county, but as the LDRS revealed last year, he and the leaders of the Progressive Lancashire official opposition group at County Hall, along with the Conservative and Our West Lancashire groups, wrote to ministers asking for the new authorities not to take over until 2029 or 2030.

Currently, the four new councils are set to be born in ‘shadow’ form in May 2027, before assuming control of their respective areas 11 months later.

County Cllr Atkinson said that while he had not ruled out following some other Reform UK-run councils in mounting a legal challenge to Lancashire’s overhaul – in the form of a judicial review – it was currently too soon to say.

“We’re asking for the information on how the government made the decision and we will review everything carefully,” he said.

In response to a government call for the existing Lancashire councils to suggest the shape of the new local authority landscape after they are abolished, the county council had put forward the idea of cutting the county into two huge new councils for the north and south – with the River Ribble broadly being the dividing line between the two.

The government ultimately operated for a four way-split that will merge Preston, Lancaster and Ribble Valley; Chorley, South Ribble and West Lancashire; Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre; and Blackburn with Darwen, Burnley, Hyndburn, Rossendale and Pendle.

A longstanding opponent of the principle of scrapping the two-tier system – including when he was previously the Conservative leader of Ribble Valley Borough Council before defecting to Reform and becoming county council leader last year – County Cllr Atkinson has repeatedly argued that larger unitary authorities take power away from local areas where it currently sits at district and standalone council level.