Decision

To sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that sets out the joint council governance regarding the Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) Reserve held by Gloucestershire County Council to fund the necessary transformation to move to unitarisation of local government in Gloucestershire.

Reasons for the decision

The total cost of delivering Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) in Gloucestershire has been currently estimated to range from circa £21m to £30m to deliver LGR in Gloucestershire, assuming that either one or two unitary authorities are created.

It has been agreed that a joint reserve is created, funded by contributions from all Gloucestershire councils, and held by Gloucestershire County Council.

Subject to agreement by every council, the split in the composition of funding has been agreed in principle as follows:

• 55% to be contributed GCC
• 45% to be contributed by the District Councils in equal shares.

As the holder of the LGR reserves, formally, this will mean legal accountability sits with GCC. Therefore a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has been drafted to ensure that a partnership approach is taken, and there is collective ownership and oversight of decision-making. Alongside this, arrangements are for a joint scrutiny of the Programmeis being established.

The MoU will clarify the principles and controls by which the pooled budget will operate. It sets out what expenditure will be eligible to be funded from this budget, which is likely to be limited to those activities which are:

1. Related to LGR and additional to current council services and responsibilities.
2. In support of defined and agreed plans within the LGR portfolio.
3. Related to budgeted expenditure items such as staffing capacity, technical advice, programme delivery, redundancies, ICT systems, the aggregation and disaggregation of services, and communications.

Alternative options considered

Councils could hold on to funding individually but, due to the expected pace at which transformation and change is needed to meet the expected mobilisation of new councils it is considered a significant administrative demand if LGR mobilisation was funded in a decentralised way.