17 February 2006
Local government leaders have been assured by the government that no decision has been taken to postpone the 2007 local elections.
David Miliband has told Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, chair of the Local Government Association, that he is keeping an open mind on whether to go for unitary government across England.
The communities and local government minister has also reiterated a previous commitment that the LGA would be told before any such decision were taken.
Bruce-Lockhart sought urgent clarification from Miliband last week, following reports that the 2007 local government elections were being delayed as a prelude to the abolition of some authorities under a full-scale reorganisation to be launched in 2008.
An LGA spokesman told Public Finance: 'We have now received the assurances from the minister that we have been seeking over this issue.'
But Miliband reiterated the need to reassess local government's structures when he spoke at the LGA's sustainable communities conference in Birmingham on February 14. He told delegates that the changing responsibilities of local authorities, with a growing emphasis on their role as creators of sustainable communities, might mean that different structures were appropriate.
He said: 'We need to look closely… at how fit for purpose the current two-tier system is for an age of more strategic and more neighbourhood-based government.'
PFfeb2006
