On costs of reorganisation the commission has had to make a
number of assumptions to calculate the total cost of reorganisation.
The reorganisation in Cornwall is not a good comparison
because there the district Councils merged into the county Council. All the
major services such as Education, Social services and Highways were unaffected
as they were already run by the County Council.
1) Will TUPE be applied to staff on reorganisation - There
were concerns over whether TUPE would have applied during the reorganisation of
the Wales Audit Office. TUPE had to be specified as applying, in order to avoid
any doubt then the application of TUPE needs to be specified preferably on the
face of the bill
2) Will there be added years for staff taking early
retirement- Historically staff taking early retirement have been given
enhancements of up to 6 2/3 years in order to facilitate their retirement, will
this enhancement be available for any who are seeking early retirement on
reorganisation.
3) Will there be
actuarial reductions for early access to pensions- At the last reorganisation
there was no actuarial reduction for those accessing pensions early. If such a
reduction occurred it would seriously affect the pensions people would receive
or they would spend the time between reorganisation and their expected
retirement date without income.
4) How will different conditions on joining authorities be
dealt with- Different authorities have different terms and conditions e.g.
Neath Port Talbot salary reduction and working hours reduction. What will
happen to these terms on merger.
5) If it costs £100 million ( I believe the cost will be
substantially higher) how will it be funded. If it is funded from the local
government settlement how many jobs will be lost. Where else could it be funded
from and whilst many councils have fairly large reserves much of that is
earmarked.
6) Why is it expected that ICT costs will be low- ICT costs
can rapidly escalate when different systems are being merged. There will be
data transfer costs, contracts that will still need to be paid and possible
compatibility problems.
7) If it goes over cost how will that be funded- Will jobs and
services be cut or will the Welsh Government underwrite such costs.
8) Will there need to be a new job evaluation and if so how
will costs be funded- As different authorities produced different grades for
the same job, on reorganisation will these need to be addressed because
otherwise we will see different salaries for the same job across the new
authorities.
9) How much will it cost to change signs, headed paper-
Whilst not a substantial sum, the changing of signs and headed paper across
Wales will add up.
10) Will travel costs be paid for staff relocated- On
reorganisation a number of staff will have to travel, possibly long distances
to their new site. Will all staff be paid travel costs and how will this be
funded
11) Will there be any salary protection and if so for how
long.
On the general report the following questions occur
1)
Why
is it important that Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue has the same boundaries
as ABMU as opposed to the same
boundaries as the Police Authority
2)
Shouldn’t
more be done to integrate services provided by the same provider e.g. Hospitals
and GP services, Education and Children’s social services
3)
Why
do you think Powys is unique it is approximately 1/5 of the size of the
Scottish Highlands and also smaller than some other Scottish Authorities
4)
The
Government has ruled out the merger of CADW and RCHAMW why do you think a
merger would be beneficial
5)
On
Unit cost of Local Authority Corporate management, the graph does not make
sense (how can a graph where there is only one point on it not reach that
point) and if the top three in costs
were removed it equates roughly to a straight line
6)
The
2012 GVA for Neath Port Talbot and Bridgend is £14964 and for Swansea £15469
indicating the GVA in Bridgend Neath Port Talbot is 96.5% of the GVA in
Swansea, why does the commission
consider this variation would concentrate deprived regions.
7)
As
Health boards have been identified as “too remote” why would the same not be true of very large Councils
8)
Why
would larger authorities not make silo working and risk aversion worse
9)
What
evidence from Wales or the rest of Britain is there that bigger authorities are
better. Birmingham is the biggest unitary authority in Britain does the
commission think it is the best despite the well documented problems there.
What evidence is thee that the three largest authorities in Wales (Cardiff,
Swansea an RCT) out perform the others
10) Why was the models used in the rest
of Europe not studied in more depth
11) What examples have the Williams Commission
got of one local authority being split between two city regions(Bridgend in the
Cardiff City region and Neath Port Talbot in the Swansea City region)
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