More anger and uncertainty – so what now for local councils?

It has been another week when politicians and council officers across the East have shaken their heads in disbelief and probably uttered a few choice expletives as well.

The reason? Yet another delay to the plans to reform local government.

This time it involves local government reorganisation (LGR), which would see existing county, borough, district and city councils replaced by large unitary authorities.

But while LGR is on hold again, the other big local government reform – directly elected mayors – has moved another step forward.

So what is going on and when, if ever, will we see some change?

Local councils are responsible for providing or overseeing more than 150 local services from social care to emptying the bins.

They matter, and so does the way they are run.

In March the government decided that Norfolk and Suffolk should each have three unitary authorities, while Essex would have five and Hertfordshire four.

But these were controversial decisions, prompting some local councils to threaten legal action and in September, days before they were to go to court, the plans were put on hold.

There was also a sparky debate going on over what local government should look like in Cambridgeshire. A decision was promised by September.

Now Local Government Minister Jim McMahon has announced that while he can give the go-ahead to five new authorities in the country, he needs longer to make a decision about the councils in the East.

"All options and proposals for those areas will remain under consideration, and I will approach them all with an open mind... It is important to allow the process to run its course and to allow full and proper consideration," he told MPs.

He has promised a decision by early 2027 and also revealed that the new councils will not come into being until 2029, a year later than previously planned.

The news was greeted with fury in Parliament.

Shadow Local Government Secretary Katie Lam MP said the situation was "nothing short of a farce".

She said: "People across the country are left without any sense of which council will be providing services in the year and years to come."

Liberal Democrat MP Pippa Heylings attacked the government's "botched handling" of the process.

"In my constituency of South Cambridgeshire, one of the fastest-growing areas in the country, businesses need certainty to invest and plan, councils need certainty to set budgets and deliver services, and council staff deserve clarity about their future," she said.

The Local Government Association said "many councils [will] remain frustrated by the situation they have been placed in. All councils affected need urgent clarity on the next steps."

McMahon insisted that the plans for LGR were "robust".

But Reform UK, which was involved in some of the legal action, was delighted.

"It was a ridiculous plan [and] fundamentally a bad decision," Peter Harris, leader of Essex County Council, told the BBC's Politics East programme.

And he now expects ministers to change their plans. "We are willing to talk to the government about making the changes necessary to make councils work better," he said.

Government MPs are insisting that LGR will still happen and stress that it's important to get the details right to avoid any further legal challenges.

They also point out that there is a new ministerial team in post following Andy Burnham's appointment as prime minister. It needs to be sure of what it's doing.

But a growing number of local politicians are sceptical and wonder, after the other delays, if ministers can ever come up with proposals that will command popular support.

"At the moment we have absolutely no idea what this government is thinking, and that's because the government isn't sure what it's thinking after two and a half years," said Jerome Mayhew, the Conservative MP for Broadland and Fakenham.

Several MPs have suggested to me that, with many opposition councillors and MPs either lukewarm about or openly hostile to the plans, and public enthusiasm seemingly lacking, will the prime minister really want to spend so much political capital getting LGR over the line in the run-up to a general election?

The plans for combined authorities with directly elected mayors have been on and off for the last 15 years but with the former mayor of Greater Manchester now in charge, there seems to be no stopping them.

Burnham sees devolution as a way of moving money out of Whitehall to the regions where local people know best how to spend it.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough already have a directly elected mayor and Norfolk and Suffolk, along with Essex, are due to have mayors in 2028.

Milton Keynes, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire are likely to follow in the future.

This was very clear in the budget where the Chancellor John Healey announced that directly elected mayors would eventually be allowed to keep 100% of local business rates and a share of local income tax revenue.

There are also plans to give the combined authorities increased funding and make it easier for them to borrow money.

"These are long-term funding streams that they can use to back investment into big local infrastructure, so that more of the money that is raised locally can be invested and spent locally," he said.

The government's plans for this part of LGR are taking shape.

But the uncertainty continues with staff and councillors trying to run their existing authorities with one hand while trying to plan for the future – whatever that might be – with the other.

Politics East is on BBC One on Sunday at 10:00 GMT and afterwards on the BBC iPlayer.

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