OXFORD City Council, together with Cherwell and West Oxfordshire district councils, have recently produced the latest version of their combined authority proposal for the county, in opposition to the “Better Oxfordshire” idea of a single unitary authority.

The combined authority model is based on the existing council leaders working more closely together on strategic policy areas. Unfortunately, their record on joint working is woeful.

Progress on important matters like housing allocation is characterised by delay and disagreement. The Labour-run city is currently proposing to spend taxpayers’ money hiring a QC to challenge South Oxfordshire’s plans for its share of Oxford’s unmet housing need. This is not a good advertisement for collaborative working. We can have no confidence that it will be any better in the future.

Supporters of the combined authority proposal say that now is not the time for a restructure, but their proposal does require changes in decision-making, not just persisting with the current structure.

Where is the evidence that this will save money? The city council and its partners argue that services would not be efficiently delivered by a remote, county-wide authority.

Of course, over 80 per cent (by spend) of services already are delivered by a county-wide authority – the county council.

The difficulty comes when decisionmaking is divided between different councils. To take just one example: the city council is responsible for monitoring and improving air quality, but the county council decides where vehicles can go.

Wouldn’t the health of our children be better protected if those two elements were considered together, by one authority with real strategic decision-making powers?

Independent reports commissioned both by the county and the city identified potential savings from a single unitary council (even though the city now distances itself from those findings).

When the next round of service cuts comes along, opponents of a unitary council will have to explain why they resisted the opportunity to save public money.

Cllr ANDREW GANT

(Liberal Democrat) Leader of the opposition,

Oxford City Council