Local Government Reorganisation Must Be Decided by Local People
A Tory and Labour mess
Local government reorganisation is being quietly pushed by central government without the consent of the people it will affect most. That alone should give everyone pause.
There is no democratic mandate for these changes. They were not set out clearly in the government’s manifesto, nor have they been put to the electorate in any meaningful or binding way. Voters have not been asked whether they want their councils abolished, their counties broken up, or decision-making shifted further away from their communities.
That is not how democracy is supposed to work.
Reform UK is clear: any fundamental change to the structure of local government must have the explicit consent of local people. Anything else is top-down government by diktat.
Let’s Be Honest: Local Government Is Broken
It is important to be honest. Local government is a mess in many parts of the country.
Councils are too often dominated by unaccountable senior officers, insulated from voters, driving policy, procurement, and priorities with little effective scrutiny. Wasteful spending, vanity projects, bloated management structures, and poor value for money have become endemic. Many councils feel less like democratic institutions and more like closed administrative corporations.
Reform UK’s successes in the May local elections have given us a clear window into the true scale of this problem. Where Reform councillors have gained access to the books, the contracts, and the internal processes, the picture has been stark: inefficiency, waste, weak accountability, and a culture that too often treats taxpayers as an afterthought.
But recognising that local government is broken does not mean accepting that Whitehall knows best how to fix it.
Reorganisation Is Not Reform
The answer to failing local government is not to abolish councils, merge counties, or create ever larger and more remote authorities.
There is no serious evidence that breaking counties apart or scrapping district councils leads to better governance. In many cases, it simply concentrates power further away from communities and further into the hands of senior officers — the very problem people are already angry about.
Far from delivering real devolution, these plans risk doing the opposite: pushing decisions about planning, housing, local services, and community priorities upwards, away from towns, villages, and neighbourhoods.
That is not empowering local people. It is insulating decision-makers from them.
A Threat to Historic County Identities
Local government is not just about structures and balance sheets. It is also about identity, history, and belonging.
Counties such as Kent and Derbyshire have strong, deeply rooted identities that matter to the people who live there. These are not arbitrary administrative zones dreamt up in Whitehall; they are places with shared history, culture, and civic pride.
Breaking them up into artificial units risks eroding that identity permanently. Once lost, it will not be easily restored.
Real Reform Starts With Consent and Accountability
Reform UK does not oppose change. But real reform means:
restoring democratic control over officer-led bureaucracies
rooting out waste and poor value for money
strengthening transparency and scrutiny
and bringing decision-making closer to the people it affects
Crucially, it also means local consent. If communities want structural change, that case should be made openly, debated honestly, and decided through proper consultation or a clear local vote.
What we oppose is a quiet restructuring of local democracy without permission, without a mandate, and without respect for local identity or accountability.
Local government should serve local people — not officers, not Whitehall, and not abstract organisational theories. Any attempt to reform it must start with the voters, not bypass them.