OPINION: 'Oxford would be at the heart of a new super council'

OXFORD is a world city with a global reputation – not just in academic research and teaching, but across science, medicine, business, tourism, heritage and the arts.

It has brilliant transport links, and an innovation base which drives economic success and prosperity far beyond the city itself.

About 50,000 people a day cross the city boundary for jobs in Oxford, and many more work in jobs linked to Oxford but outside the city limits.

Oxford is also a city with significant areas of deprivation, and real social and economic problems – too many people can’t afford to buy or rent the homes they deserve, too many of the jobs we create don’t pay enough to live on, and too many parents worry that their children won’t get a place at a school of their choice, or that they won’t grow up to have a better standard of living than they did.

To be honest, that’s true across much of Oxfordshire. So since launching the One Oxfordshire debate last month, I am struck less by the people who have a different proposal for change and more by the people who deny that change is needed at all.

I thought this was agreed. A report prepared by independent auditors, paid for in part by Oxford City Council, just last summer said that without change, local government would be failing in its duty to the people and places we serve.

I agree. Oxford, hand in hand with the county, can do better than this – can be better than this.

But only if we can get beyond the differences of petty politics and bureaucratic power, and work together for something new, different and long overdue.

A council that plans homes, jobs, transport and schools together, not separately.

A council that doesn’t have to push people back and forth between county hall and town hall depending what specific service they want.

The same council helping people live healthy lives as the one that runs their local leisure centre.

One council collecting the rubbish and disposing of the rubbish, rather than one council picking it up, and giving it to a completely different council to get rid of. It’s a no-brainer.

There is no option just to keep things the way they are. Running six councils, potentially with a mayor on top in the future, is wasteful and inefficient.

It costs £400,000 more every week than one council for the whole area would cost. £250 will have been wasted in the time it will take you just to read this short article.

Money that could be spent on fixing potholes, providing a better future for children, looking after our old folk, or whatever the priorities of local people are under a new and more efficient council.

Instead, demand for services keeps growing, Government funding keeps falling, and we get stuck in a loop of having to cut those services, because we can’t cut our bureaucracies any further. Oxfordshire’s population grows and gets older.

The number of people over 85 in Oxfordshire will double by 2030, and we need to be able to look after them.

Our economic growth attracts new workers, which is welcome, but they need schools and roads (and libraries and fire stations and community centres and parks) as well as homes and jobs.

Meanwhile, Government increasingly expects councils to be self-sufficient.

However much we all might wish times were easier, that isn’t going to change, so we need to rise to that challenge – Oxford and Oxfordshire united.

That’s why we want Oxford to be at the heart of local democracy.

The city doesn’t exist in isolation: the challenges we all face in Oxfordshire, of finding a job, and a home, and a way to get from one to the other, and a school for our children, and care for our parents, and healthcare when we need it – those apply across council boundaries.

We can bring together the best from all of our existing councils to provide better outcomes for residents – for example Oxford City Council delivers many services inhouse and Oxford Direct uses this capacity to generate commercial income to put back into service delivery.

We want the city council to come on board and help roll that approach out across the county in everyone’s interests.

Should different areas of the county, and indeed different areas of the city in some cases, be able to make different political choices from each other on some of these issues?

Of course!

Will I campaign for as many Conservative councillors as possible in the new council? Of course I will.

But do I want to use this as an opportunity to force different political choices on an unwilling public? Of course not.

I may not even get re-elected myself – that’s up to the voters, and that’s OK.

We’re working on ways to make sure the new council is locally accountable – democratically, and to individual service users.

The proposals will be better overall, and better for Oxford, if local residents, businesses, and dare I say it Oxford City Council, work with us on building them.

Indeed two districts in the south of the county, formerly firm opponents, are now on board with making this work.

Why? Because Oxfordshire’s county, city and district councils ultimately serve exactly the same residents.

Not only is there is no takeover, but if any one of us fails, we all fail the people we serve.

That’s why the proposal is the abolition of all councils and the establishment of a brand new organisation that delivers the interests of all residents, with Oxford at the heart of Oxfordshire’s strong economy and the future of its public services.

This is an open and genuine offer to all the residents of the city to work with us to design a new structure that works across the county – with the city at its heart and a system of local and strategic decision-making which make each other better, rather than ones which encourage squabbling while residents suffer.

A unitary council will give the city and county together the strong voice, the local democracy and accountability, and the efficient highquality services we deserve – for local residents, local businesses, and service users.

We owe it to them to get this right, and to make it happen.