Shared Services and the Tri Borough Arrangement

The success of Labour in Hammersmith & Fulham has led to a call to review the Tri Borough arrangement.  Of course shared services can and are maintained across political divides.  Political disagreements are simply one of a number of factors including operational, financial and timing factors that can scupper shared services.  I notice for example that GLL in Wandsworth withdrew from the London Lending Consortium because they felt they might be overpaying.

I have always thought the Tri Borough linkage has been rather overhyped.  Westminster estimates its population at 223,858.  Hammersmith & Fulham thinks it has 179,850.  On a slightly different basis, Kensington & Chelsea think that they have 158,700.  Added together, that is not much bigger than Brent's population in the 2011 Census of 312,800.  It is far smaller than the area covered by the West London Waste Authority.  The economies of scale that the Tri-Borough authorities are largely a comment on their very small size prior to their attempted merger.  There are County Councils that already cover much bigger populations within one authority.