Your correspondent, Oliver Lewis, the Reform UK Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr, advocates the break-up of Powys as a unitary authority with Montgomeryshire becoming a stand-alone unit of just 13 councillors, suggesting this would be “much less costly for the taxpayers”.
Now, I am no fan of inflated bureaucracy and I think there are serious problems with Powys as a unitary authority, but such a small council as Mr Lewis advocates would scarcely be able to find enough members to fulfil the statutory functions of a unitary authority Cabinet let alone enough Chairs and Vice-Chairs of statutory Committees.
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In addition, a authority of such a size would have to offer massively inflated salaries in order to attract e.g. Directors of Education or Social Services, having forfeited the economies of scale provided by being part of a larger unit.
The Council Tax required to fund such a bijoux authority would go through the roof.
Any more bright ideas from the Reform UK/Brexit/Lee Anderson Party?
David Thomas, Vice-Chair, Plaid Cymru, Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr
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