Districts believe shake-up proposal could save over £500m in decade

The backers of a plan to dramatically reshape Devon’s councils claim their proposal could save around £500 million in just 10 years.

Seven of Devon’s district councils have collaborated on a proposal to redraw Devon’s administrative map in response to a government request to overhaul how services are delivered to residents.

A key area where the advocates of this plan believe savings can be made is in adult social care, whereby it says even just reducing the cost per head to a level closer to national averages would help.

A 300-page document supporting the so-called 4-5-1 idea claims Devon’s spend per head is £606.60 in adult social care, but Kent is £533.23 and Lincolnshire £423.35 per head.

That means it predicts savings in just that one directorate of £15 million a year or even £30 million in a ‘stretch’ case that would see even harder efforts to achieve savings.

Similarly, the suggestion is that children’s social care also spends highly, with the 4-5-1 proponents claiming Devon County Council had the third highest spend per head of any of the 21 county councils in 2023/24. It adds that “other sparsely populated” counties such as Leicestershire and Lincolnshire “spend significantly less per head”.

The 4-5-1 proposal would see the South Hams, Teignbridge, West Devon and Torbay merged to create one unitary council, then East, Mid and North Devon and Exeter and Torridge combined to create another, with Plymouth – already a unitary council – left as it is now.

Westminster wants to eradicate the two-tier system of local government that exists in 21 areas of England, including Devon, which involves some services being overseen by a county council and other services within the same area being the responsibility of district councils.

Instead, it wants counties to have fewer but larger unitary councils, which are responsible for all services within their boundaries.

Councillor John Loudoun (Independent, Sidmouth Rural), the deputy leader at East Devon District Council, said although the 4-5-1 proposal was suggested rapidly after the government’s initial reorganisation request in December, the more in-depth process of working out the best solution for Devon had not been pre-determined.

“As we went through the process it has been very clear that we were not deciding to come out the other end with 4-5-1,” he said.

“We have opted for what is right for Devon and based that decision on where the evidence took us.”

Cllr Loudoun said the council had worked with consultants KPMG, which has helped other councils decide the best reorganisation proposals for their areas.

“We believe the 4-5-1 option is the most balanced outcome, but another option of four unitaries also came close. But this is not a political outcome as between the councils working on it, there are Lib Dem-led administrations, independent-led ones and Conservative-led ones.”

Financial modelling behind the districts’ proposal – dubbed Reimagining Devon: Believe in Better – suggested forecast savings of around £77 million from year six and a cumulative saving of £508 million after a decade.

“The districts have held firm in their unity of purpose,” Cllr Loudoun said, “and we are stronger collectively today than we were six or 12 months ago.”

Despite that, Exeter has developed its own proposal and not backed the 4-5-1 idea, while Torbay, which has notionally supported the districts’ proposal, at a late stage looks to be putting forward its own suggestion to government.

“I don’t want to get into the position of criticising anyone else,” Cllr Loudoun said, “We have all put in the same data and taken it out and see it through our individual lenses, but Reimagining Devon is, in our opinion, the best for Devon as a whole and is not being parochial.”

Cllr Loudoun said much of the baseline data used for the various submissions by Devon’s councils came from data held by Plymouth, including the council tax base for the county, and population data, which was then shared with various town halls.

Cllr Loudoun added that creating the 300-page document for their proposal had been a “distraction” for the councils’ officers from their “very hard job of making sure we deliver, every day, the quality services our residents rely upon”.

He added that a concern for him was the level of change that would be required when a new system of local government is implemented.

Devon County Council has been emphasising that retaining its boundary for a new unitary authority would be logical as it claims this would lead to less disruption for major services, such as adults and children’s social care. Plymouth, Exeter and Torbay have also submitted proposals.

Asked if he thought the 4-5-1 proposal would be chosen by ministers, Cllr Loudoun said “one has to be positive in life”.

“I think it is a very well researched and written, and well evidenced document that answers the government’s key six questions they set us,” he said.

“If they look at this dispassionately, they will see that what we have put before them is a framework and proposal that could be very beneficial for the whole of Devon.”

A decision on which proposal is successful is expected to be made by the government in the summer, with the new councils going live in April 2028.