Agenda and minutes

A webcast of the meeting can be viewed here.

The minutes of the meeting held on 8 September 2025 were taken as read, confirmed and signed.

The Chairman invited members who wished to do so to declare any interest in respect of items on the agenda for the meeting.

It was noted that all members that were also district councillors would have an other registerable interest in agenda item 4: Local Government Reorganisation.

No other declarations were made.

There were no declarations of the party whip in accordance with Overview and Scrutiny Procedure Rule 16.

The views of the Scrutiny Commission are sought as part of the engagement exercise being undertaken to help shape the County Council’s business case for local government reorganisation.  A presentation will be provided as part of this item which will cover the following:

• Introduction
• Criteria for decision making
• Options considered  
• Financial case
• Benefits to service delivery
• Key to devolution
• Community engagement/neighbourhood empowerment
• Democracy and governance
• Implementation and transformation plan
• Engagement and feedback themes
• Conclusion

Mr D. Harrison CC, the Leader of the Council, Mr K. Crook CC, the Deputy Leader, and Mr H. Fowler CC, Lead Member for Resources, have been invited to attend for this item.

The Committee received a presentation from the Chief Executive and Director of Corporate Resources regarding Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) to allow the Commission to comment on the Council’s proposals as part of the engagement exercise being undertaken.  The presentation covered the government criteria for LGR, the options under consideration for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, and the financial impacts of those options. A copy of the presentation slides is filed with these minutes.

The Chairman welcomed to the meeting Mrs. N. Bottomley CC who had been invited to attend for this item.  She also welcomed Mr. J. Miah CC who was attending via Microsoft Teams.  The Chairman explained that this was to ensure all political parties would be represented in the discussion. Mr. M. H. Charlesworth CC had been invited but had been unable to attend.

Arising from discussions the following points were noted:

(i)               The comments and feedback from the Scrutiny Commission would be taken into account when shaping the Council’s business case for Local Government Reorganisation. The business case was in the process of being drafted.

(ii)             Members expressed disappointment that limited detail of the proposals had been provided at the meeting and requested the opportunity to scrutinise the business case prior to it being considered by the full Council on 12 November 2025.  It was noted that the timeline for producing the business case had been challenging for officers, given that both Council meetings in July had taken negative decisions and did not come to a position on a preferred option.  In addition, it had been necessary to wait for the outcome of the financial modelling in order for an informed proposal to be developed.

(iii)            The Leicestershire County Council administration was proposing one brand new Council for Leicestershire and Rutland, based on current boundaries, with Leicester City retaining its current boundaries. The County Council would also welcome a Strategic Authority with an elected Mayor sat above the local authorities in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

(iv)           An external consultancy had been jointly commissioned by Leicestershire County Council and Leicester City Council to produce financial modelling of the different options for LGR. An offer had been made to the District Councils for them to join in with the modelling, but they declined the offer and carried out their own modelling. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) also carried out modelling of the financial impacts and came to similar outcomes across the options as the County and City Councils. Members were reassured by this, particularly as the two organisations that had carried out the modelling were independent. However, one member submitted that the presentation at the meeting was prejudiced towards the county council proposals rather than the district council proposals.

(v)             The Leader Mr. D. Harrison CC said he was confident that the modelling and assumptions were as accurate as they could be and it had been worth taking the extra time to put the proposals together.

(vi)           The District Councils had proposed a north/south split of the County. They had taken a different approach to the financial modelling for this proposal than that taken by the County and City Councils and included savings which were not dependent on reorganisation. There had been no clear instructions from government on the way the modelling should be carried out. However, it was not clear from the approach taken by the District Council that they fully appreciated the complexities of scaling up services to the extent proposed in their business case.

(vii)          Rutland County Council currently relied on Leicestershire County Council to carry out services for it, including Youth Offending and a range of social care services.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 34.

The next meeting of the Commission is scheduled to take place on Monday, 10 November 2025.

RESOLVED:

That the next meeting of the Commission be held on Monday 10 November 2025 at 10.00am.