Little correlation between unitary councils’ size and service quality, official data reveals
New data analysis reveals the lack of any link between councils’ size and performance, undermining the Government’s case to impose mega councils across England.
The Government plans to reorganise local government by merging county councils and district councils into mega councils, each covering a population of half a million people or more. It has previously admitted that it has no independent evidence justifying councils of this size.
Analysis of official statistics shows no relationship between the population size of unitary authorities and their performance in areas including children’s services, social care, tenant satisfaction and finance.
The figures were collated by Uttlesford District Council for the District Councils’ Network (DCN). They compared the performance of existing unitary councils from Council of the Isles of Scilly, with little more than 2,000 inhabitants, to Birmingham City Council, with 1.157 million residents. Councils were divided into four quartiles based on their population size and their performance was compared using publicly available data including Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) ratings.
On children’s services, almost twice as many councils with the smallest populations obtained the CQC’s highest ‘outstanding’ rating than councils with the largest populations.
When it came to adult social care, although more councils with the largest populations were deemed to be ‘outstanding’ than those with smaller populations, the larger councils also appeared to be prone to experiencing major problems. All six of the unitary councils nationwide that got the lowest ‘requires improvement’ rating had higher than average populations.
Councils with below-average populations were more likely to get the highest ratings when it came to tenant satisfaction ratings for their area. Councils with the largest populations were more likely to get lower ratings.
There was also no indication that smaller councils are more prone to severe financial problems, with slightly fewer of them issuing a Section 114 notice or capitalisation directions over the past three years than was the case with their bigger counterparts.
In detail: Council performance by population
Proportion of councils per population quartile getting each ranking
| Measure | Quartile 1 (councils with smallest population)
2,281-194,894 people |
Quartile 2
195,618-264,703 people |
Quartile 3
266,862-328,513 people |
Quartile 4 (councils with largest population)
329,035-1,157,603 people |
| Ofsted Children’s services: ‘outstanding’ rating | 27% | 21% | 12% | 15% |
| Ofsted Children’s services: ‘inadequate’ rating | 15% | 15% | 6% | 12% |
| CQC Adult social care ‘outstanding’ rating | 6% | 3% | 9% | 9% |
| CQC: Adult social care ‘requires improvement’ rating | 0% | 0% | 6% | 3% |
| RSH: Tenant satisfaction top quartile | 12% | 24% | 15% | 15% |
| RSH: Tenant satisfaction lower quartile | 6% | 12% | 24% | 24% |
In response to the data, Cllr Sam Chapman-Allen, Chair of the District Councils’ Network, said:
“When there’s no relationship between the size of unitary councils and their performance, it’s baffling that the Government continues to pursue mega councils each covering half a million people or more.
“Mega councils are by their very definition further from their communities – the danger is that they’re remote organisations that are unresponsive to the very localised needs of our communities.
“The Government is currently rushing through local government reorganisation without pausing to consider whether mega councils really will benefit local people. We know mega councils don’t necessarily offer better services or are more financially sustainable than the rest of local government, so why force them upon our areas?
“Reorganisation requires painstaking organisational upheaval which will inevitably occupy local leaders who would far rather prioritise the more important business of delivering for our communities – building homes, creating jobs and supporting vulnerable people.
“I fully support any reorganisation that keeps the ‘local’ in local government, is bottom-up, integrally involves our communities in the design of new councils and builds services around the needs of the everyone in our community. The danger is that by rushing ahead to impose mega councils with no evidence that they work our communities will endure all the pain of upheaval without any gain.”
DCN represents all 164 district councils. Under the Government’s plans, all would be merged with county councils into new unitary councils, each covering 500,000 people or more. District councils, which are the closest principal authorities to communities, run services including housing, economic development, waste collection and leisure centres. County councils run services including social care, children’s services and highways.
Peter Holt, Chief Executive of Uttlesford District Council, which undertook the analysis, said:
“We entered into the local government reorganisation process in Essex with an open mind to the size of new authorities and wanted evidence to help us make a decision about what’s best for our community.
“Having sifted through real-world evidence drawn from MHCLG, Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission and Regulator of Social Housing, we can see that there’s absolutely no correlation between population size and the performance or financial stability of unitary councils.
“It’s not being super-sized that makes a council high performing or financially stable – it’s years of hard work by dedicated public servants, supported by strong political and officer leadership.”
