Life after reorganisation

How Medway and the rest of Kent could change in the coming years

This is the second of our more in-depth looks into the details of local government reorganisation that regular readers of Local Authority already know and love. In part one, former civil servant Bob Collins looked at the back story – how and why we got to this point. In this one, we take a look beyond the current shenanigans to what the future will actually look like and how it might differ from the way things are now.

The timetable and elections

First, the immediate future. The Kent authorities will submit their multiple proposals to Government this month. What then? Well, under existing legislation, there is a seven-stage process governing the setting up of any new local authorities.

Without spelling these out in full (follow the above links if you’re really interested), essentially this involves a consultation and then a formal decision by the Government to implement the change. Then, more details will need to be hammered out, including how many councillors there will be, ward boundaries, etc.

The Government has said it could consult in the new year and announce the decision on the new authorities by summer recess 2026, with elections to the new unitaries on 6 May 2027. The new authorities would then go live on 1 April 2028.

This seems ambitious to say the least. The ‘could’ in the first part of that sentence is doing some heavy lifting and will have been chosen carefully. Usually, when the Government doesn’t want to make something a hard commitment, it will use a phrase like ‘aims to’ in place of ‘will.’ But ‘could.’ But…. ‘could?’ Well, yes of course it could. But…

First, the potential for multiple proposals in areas is bound to complicate matters. The legislation, which dates from 2007, appears to be drafted on the (reasonable) assumption that there will only be one proposal at a time. It’s not clear whether the Government will consult on all rival proposals before deciding which one it likes best, or whether it will pick a favourite and consult on that one only. But either way, it is likely to consume more time, and as we mentioned last time, Kent is far from the only area with local disagreements on which a brand new Ministerial team in Government will have decisions to make.

While there’s every possibility of this timetable coming under quite some pressure, the Government maintains that it wants the entire process to be completed in this parliament. I bet it does!

Medway’s preferred reorganisation map.

Also, just to be clear, this process above is just for the creation of the new unitaries. The creation of Mayoral Authorities, sitting above the unitaries, is subject to an entirely different process. The Government selected six new areas to move to a Mayoral system under the Devolution Priority Programme. Kent applied to be one of these but was unsuccessful. The Government policy is still that they want to see Mayoral Authorities covering the whole country, but has said nothing yet about the timetable for the non-priority areas. If it’s going to happen, it would make sense to synchronise the Mayoral elections with the new council elections in May 2027, which would be a year behind most of the priority mayoral areas. Although Kent County Council remains keen, that timetable seems challenging.

So, for now, let’s just look at that new council set-up. In just over 18 months, if all goes to plan, you will go into your polling station and vote for your local councillor(s) for the new North Kent unitary. But what ward will you be in? How big will it be? How many members per ward? These are all questions that won’t be settled until after the decision on what the authority is (see the seven-stage process above), when the statutory orders are set up. Although we don’t yet know what the area of the new authority will be, we know it will cover most if not all of what is now Dartford, Gravesham and Medway, with the inclusion of Swale being the big either/or. It is also highly likely that the new authority will have fewer councillors than the sum of those in the previous constituent authorities. That has been the case with most previous council mergers. This means in turn that each councillor will likely be covering a larger area than previously, with bigger wards and/or more casework. This is another part of the ‘devolution revolution’ that doesn’t quite match the rhetoric. More power transferred down from Whitehall, but local councillors having less time to devote to you and your particular needs.