Lack of vision

I WANTED to respond to the proposals by the Labour Welsh Government to reform local government. I believe this back to the future plan shows a huge lack of vision by the Public Services Minister Leighton Andrews, who appears to be completely out of touch with the workings of local authorities. The proposal for Gwent will create an unwieldy and disparate authority with resources inevitably being dragged to Newport to the detriment of people in the north of the county. The Minister is proposing a return to the old Gwent authority but with the addition of around 100,000 residents in the county borough that were formally in the old Mid Glamorgan area. What about democracy and democratic responsibility in all of this? There seems to be no consideration at all of this issue. Devolution should go further than Cardiff Bay. It should be about local accountability and delivering good quality services to residents locally but we appear to be faced with a government that thinks the answer to everything is to centralise. The Labour Welsh government is setting back the justification for real devolution not enhancing it. The Minister has created uncertainty. There is uncertainty on the cost. Hundreds of millions could be spent on re-organisation with no certainty whatsoever on longer-term savings. There is also the human cost with uncertainty for staff which may well lead to a detriment in services. This all comes at a time when authorities should be concentrating on delivering good quality services for the public, which they are trying to do with greatly reduced budgets.