One Council to Rule Them All by Denis Podany

I work for a living. Early alarm. Boots on. Out the door. Same as millions of people who keep this country ticking while others sit in meetings about “vision”.

So, when I hear Surrey is being chopped up and re-assembled into shiny new “unitary councils” – West and East – my wallet tightens and my patience disappears. Because I’ve lived long enough to know this rule of British life: If the council says “this will make things simpler”, it never will – for you.

It’ll be simpler for them. Quieter. Fewer people asking awkward questions. Fewer locals sticking their oar in. And a lot more power floating upwards where nobody can reach it.

They say it’s about efficiency. They always do. They said that about everything that ended up costing more and working worse. I’ve yet to see a council reorganisation that made my bin collection cheaper, my roads smoother, or my life easier.

But I’ve seen plenty that made it harder to work out who to shout at when things go wrong.

That’s the trick

Once upon a time – not fairy-tale Britain, real Britain – local government was actually local. Councillors lived nearby. You saw them in the street. If they messed up, they couldn’t hide behind a press office and a generic email address.

You knew where responsibility lived.

Now responsibility lives nowhere in particular.

Under a unitary council, councillors get thinner on the ground. West and East Surrey, between them, will have just 162 councillors. As compared with 81 county councillors, and 453 borough or district councillors, currently. So, the gap between decision-makers and ordinary people grows wider than a pothole after winter.

Three unitary councillors will have to do as much as ten councillors under the current system. On top of that, the government plans to squeeze more and more people into Surrey in the next 20 years or so. More than 70,000 of those in Waverley alone.

Thousands more residents. Endless emails. Endless casework. Councillors will be overwhelmed. Not because they’re lazy – because the system is designed to overload them.

While they’re drowning, the real power quietly slips upstairs.

The decision makers

The council itself has cabinet leaders and deputy leaders, and cabinet members with “special responsibilities.”. And it has Group Leaders from political parties.

Some of the councillors are good people. They care about the people of their area, and set out to do the best they can for them. Others are just politicians, with agendas they want to subject people to at local level, like anti-car policies. Guess which of these two groups tends to gravitate to the top?

And then there’s the unelected lot. CEOs and senior officers. People you didn’t vote for and couldn’t pick out of a line-up. Some of them are paid six-figure salaries – and you’re the one who’s paying for them.

They don’t knock on doors. They don’t stand in the rain at bus stops listening to complaints. They don’t get cornered in Tesco being asked why nothing works.

But they decide.

And once power gets that far away, it gets comfortable. It starts talking to itself. It starts using words like “delivery” and “outcomes” while delivering nothing you actually want or asked for.

We’re told this improves accountability. That’s a good one. Accountability to who, exactly?

When one giant council covers half a county, who’s meant to keep it in check? You? Writing emails into the void? A councillor juggling five committee meetings and three thousand unread messages?

Old versus new

In the old system – clunky as it was – bad ideas had to fight their way through layers. Boroughs. Districts. County. Arguments. Delays. Rows.

Annoying? Yes. Protective? Absolutely.

That friction stopped plenty of nonsense before it escaped into real life.

Now? One plan. One strategy. One announcement. And by the time you hear about it, it’s already “agreed in principle”.

Which is council-speak for “you’re too late”.

Saving money?

They say this will save money. Let’s deal with that lie properly.

Britain has been “reorganising councils to save money” for decades. Somehow the savings never arrive, but the consultants always do. New logos. New buildings. New job titles. New teams to manage the teams that replaced the old teams.

And you still can’t get through on the phone.

What does get cut are the people who actually interact with the public. The blokes and women who know the patch. The ones who fix small problems before they turn into big ones.

So, services feel worse, even while the council congratulates itself for being “leaner”.

Accountability… or not?

And here’s the bit they really don’t like you noticing.

When things go wrong under a unitary council, blame becomes fog. Nobody quite owns the decision. Everyone points sideways. It’s the structure. The budget. The inherited mess. The national picture.

In short: no one’s fault.

That’s not an accident. That’s the design.

And spare me the talk about “strong leadership”. Strong leadership without proper checks is just bossiness with a lanyard.

Britain didn’t stay stable for centuries by trusting power to behave itself. It stayed stable by spreading it out, slowing it down, and making sure someone local could always say “hang on a minute”.

We are very good in this country at inventing clever systems that look tidy on paper and fail in real life. Unitary councils are exactly that.

They make life easier for the people running the show and harder for the people living under it.

Local councillors will still graft. The good ones always do. They’ll fight their corner. They’ll raise issues. They’ll annoy the leadership – which is about the most useful thing they can do.

But they’ll be doing it with less clout, less time, and less chance of stopping bad decisions early.

And that suits the people at the top just fine.

I’m not writing this as a politician. I’m writing it as someone who works, pays tax, and expects not to be treated like a nuisance for having an opinion.

People like us don’t need degrees in public administration to spot a stitch-up. We know when something’s being taken away while we’re told it’s an upgrade.

When power moves further away, it never comes back on its own.

When councils get bigger, ordinary people get smaller.

And when they say “this is for your benefit”, it almost never is.

We’ve seen this trick before.

We’re seeing it again now.

And this time, we’re not clapping.

Strategic Authority… and Mayor of Surrey?

And then, there will be a “Strategic Authority” covering Surrey as a whole; see the map above. And there’s a “Mayor of Surrey” in the offing, some time. No-one seems to know exactly when. But a future Mayor for Surrey seems to be a foregone conclusion, even though we the people have never been consulted on the matter.

Mayors are planned to have “unprecedented powers and budgets.” So, how will elected councillors fight for the interests of the people they are supposed to serve against a powerful, activist Mayor? We’ve all seen what happened in Outer London – local councils, and even local MPs like Gareth Bacon, were powerless to resist the expansion of ULEZ into their local areas. We don’t want that kind of thing in rural Surrey.

This Is How We Beat It

Here’s where I stop just pointing out the problems and say this plainly.

This system wasn’t built for people like us. It was built by Tory- and Labour-minded bureaucrats who think “working class” is a phrase for speeches, not a way of life. They designed councils around meetings, reports, and process – not early alarms, graft, and common sense.

They never factored in the bloke who drives for a living.

The woman juggling shifts and kids.

The tradesman who can spot nonsense in ten seconds flat.

They didn’t account for people who look at the world sideways and say, “hang on – that doesn’t add up.”

That’s their mistake.

Because the truth is, this whole unitary setup only works if ordinary people shrug and accept it. It relies on silence. On fatigue. On everyone thinking, “what’s the point?”

And that’s exactly where it falls apart.

What we can do

Power like this doesn’t collapse from the top. It collapses when enough people at the bottom refuse to play along. When we stop nodding. When we stop being polite about being ignored. When we stand together and back the people willing to say no – loudly and repeatedly.

This isn’t about left or right. It’s about up and down.

It’s about who decides – and who lives with the consequences.

I’m not asking for blind loyalty. I’m asking for something much more British than that: backbone.

Stand together. Back each other. Back anyone prepared to challenge this stitched-up system from the outside instead of climbing it from the inside.

If someone comes from the shop floor, the cab, the yard, the road – and they say they’ll take this on – don’t sneer and say “you can’t”. That’s exactly what they said about every working man and woman who ever forced change in this country.

This system survives because it thinks we’re divided, distracted, and done.

It’s wrong.

Give people like me the opportunity – not power, not privilege, just the chance – and we’ll do what this country has always done best when it’s had enough.

We’ll stand our ground.

We’ll call it out.

And we’ll beat it – together.

Image credit on main page: Surrey County Council