Localgovernmentlawyer reports that four Councils in Oxfordshire are considering having no staff whatever. This is a vision that would gladden the ghost of Nick Ridley.
This sort of thing is much harder than you might think. It sounds as if the central company will have a contract to advise Councils, and it will be performing most Council functions (assuming that is legally possible, which I think in some cases it may not be). I assume that contractors for (say) street cleaning would be cliented by the central company, which makes me wonder how responsive they might be to the actual local authority.
However, it is certainly one of the most radical proposals in local government.
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Frightening how hostile the Tory government is to any form of local government. Deep in their hearts they want to scrap Revneue Support Grant, which is currently in process of being halved by 2017 or so, and at the present rate will be gone by 2021 or so. This would leave local authorities with only Counci Tax as their main source of income, a tax which charges the same for Buckingham Palace as a large 4-bedroom house and is almost as regressive as the infamous poll tax. If they had their way, voters would be asked to approve by referendum any increase in counci ltax, and possibly to approve any new spending activities at all. Local government is being hit far harder under their austerity regime than central government.
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