Lincolnshire councils look towards greater collaboration

North Lincolnshire Council, North East Lincolnshire Council and Lincolnshire County Council, together with the Greater Lincolnshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), already work closely on strategic matters in relation to economic growth and increasing prosperity.

The establishment of a joint committee of upper tier authorities is designed to provide a formal collaborative working arrangement to ensuring even greater levels of strategic alignment.

Coun Martin Hill, leader of Lincolnshire County Council, said: “For Greater Lincolnshire to reach its full potential there is a need for improved alignment of services and more collaborative working across the public sector. We have strong existing relationships and already work across these boundaries in areas such as adoption services and the Local Enterprise partnership.

“There are further opportunities to strengthen partnership working across the upper tier authorities to improve our offer to our businesses, visitors and residents.

“We feel there are other areas worth exploring in tourism and heritage, waste, coroner’s service and public health.”

Coun Rob Waltham, leader, North Lincolnshire Council, said: “We already work together with colleagues across Greater Lincolnshire on a number of strategically important matters and where we can align even closer in the spirit of this existing co-operation and collaboration we should.

“It is important that we continue to strengthen our capacity and capability across a number of areas and it makes absolute sense to continue to work with our colleagues to do that.

“All our councils deal with things such education, highways, and adults and children services, where we already share best practice to ensure we can keep people safe and well, grow the economy and enable communities to flourish. There are many more opportunities for us work together to ensure better outcomes for the residents in Greater Lincolnshire.”

Coun Philip Jackson, leader of North East Lincolnshire Council, said: “Since taking control of the council, we’ve regularly stated we believe closer links with other authorities across Greater Lincolnshire will present a number of benefits for our residents and businesses.

“Forming a Joint Committee is the next logical step in this, building more formally on existing relationships and allowing us to explore the big strategic issues facing us all and how we can align opportunities across Greater Lincolnshire. ‘’

The committee will build upon the existing working relationships and provide a forum for exploring opportunities to work strategically together to achieve even better outcomes from residents.

All three member councils will consider the proposals this coming week and any proposals developed by the joint committee will be approved through each member authority’s executive decision making processes and associated overview and scrutiny functions.

County and district councillor Marianne Overton has raised concerns that this new working arrangement may lead to an erosion of democracy and disenfranchisement of local residents as the agreement did not include leaders of the seven district councils in the county.

Coun Overton called for action to initiate debate to pre-empt any proposals to “re-organise” North Kesteven. “This is about defending local democracy and quality local services,” said Coun Overton MBE.

Coun Overton continued: “NK Independents call for strong local representation and would not support any reorganisation where residents could find themselves further from the democratic processes with less representation. We seek to avoid an erosion of quality of our local services, a quality currently exemplified by the good service from North Kesteven.”

She put a motion to North Kesteven District Council at its meeting on Thursday asking members to resist local government reorganisation that could reduce local representation. This was defeated 14 votes to 22.

Deputy Leader of the NK Independents, Coun. Peter Lundgren added: “This motion is not an attempt to block the reorganisation of local government in Lincolnshire. But it is to ensure that residents continue to have the benefit of locally elected representatives and the delivery of quality local services - whatever proposals for reorganisation come forward.

“This motion seeks to ensure that the principles of local democracy and local representation are not sacrificed on the altar rationalisation and financial savings - be those savings real or imagined.”

Council Leader Coun Richard Wright said it was a ‘premature’ approach, based on speculation and devoid of fact’ which sought to ‘scaremonger about the erosion of services’.

“To support a motion that contains speculation and not a single fact concerning representation and also scare mongering about erosion of services, would not be prudent for this council to undertake,” he said, “and certainly not a message we want to send to Government.

“Do we want to say the answer is no, before we even know what the question is, or indeed if there is even a question?

He said there were no local government reorganisation processes currently being considered, apart from in three distant localities which might, in themselves, not even begin.

“As I have repeatedly stated to Coun Overton, all members and our residents the importance of local representation and democracy are factors I hold dear and have no desire to see diminished.”

“Furthermore in respect of the broader Greater Lincolnshire discussions, where those have the potential to strengthen and build a resilient response to issues such as public health, inward investment, jobs creation and skills across the wider area, then that was to be welcomed,” Coun Wright said.

“It is by working together with other authorities and bodies that we are making the case for our district and our county; working with the Greater Lincolnshire Enterprise Partnership on economic requirements and vital infrastructure and of course working with, and supporting the county.”

He referred to recent successes of economic development funding delivering £8.6m of traffic flow improvements at Sleaford and the North Hykeham Relief Road.

Commenting directly on the new arrangement between the county council and the two other authorities, Coun Wright added: “Although any closer working arrangements between Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire may not appear at first glance to have any bearing on North Kesteven and its work, there is a potential, welcome benefit from a closer alliance over a number of principal functions such as public health, education, skills, economic opportunity and social care.

“There is logic in the authorities responsible for public health, social care and aspects of economic development and skills in working together across the parameters of the Lincolnshire Enterprise Partnership, of which North Kesteven is an active partner, and joint governance in enabling that makes sense.

“For instance, we would hope to see strength and collaboration in the manner in which public health initiatives and social care provision operate as one, with seamless efficiency regardless of local authority boundaries.

“Just as we are working well together in response to the pandemic and in the delivery of local services, as ten councils across Greater, we enjoy proactive dialogue with our local authority partners to share development of proposals which promote the county and the district as strong, safe and sustainable places to live, work and visit.”