This September is a watershed moment for local government. Across the country, councils on the government's devolution priority programme will be submitting their business cases for reorganisation. It marks the most significant transformation of local government in over 50 years. For many of us, this is a once in a generation opportunity. My son is eleven months old and the next time a government decides to undertake reform of this scale, he will be in his fifties. That is how rare, how important, and how consequential this moment is.
And yet, if you read some of the commentary from the County Councils Network (CCN) and District Councils Network (DCN) in recent weeks, you would be forgiven for thinking we were talking about a routine reshuffle of deckchairs rather than a historic restructuring of how democracy, accountability and services are delivered in this country. Both CCN and DCN have embarrassed themselves with analysis that is narrow, self-interested, and blind to the scale of what is really happening.
