Reform programme legislation
Introduction to the legislative requirements for the Local Government Reform Programme
There are three pieces of legislation required to make local government reform happen.
The Local Government Policy Division (LGPD) intends to bring forward the following three Bills* to facilitate the modernisation and reform process.
* Please note that these are the current titles and content of the proposed Bills and they may be subject to change. This is not an authoritative statement of law.
Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill (Formerly Local Government Contracts and Compulsory Purchase) Bill
The purpose of this Bill is:
- to clarify the powers of district councils to enter into long-term service contracts with the private sector (for example, Public Private Partnership or Private Finance Initiative contracts); this should give contractors and their financiers confidence in entering into contracts with councils
- to enable councils to compulsory-acquire land (that is, to vest land) for any of their waste management functions
- to enable the Department of the Environment (DOE) to make severance arrangements for councillors
- to enable the DOE to establish Statutory Transition Committees through subordinate legislation to assist in the reorganisation of local government; this will also enable the DOE to specify the roles, functions, constitution and governance arrangements of these Statutory Transition Committees
- to enable the DOE to issue a direction which will place controls on the financial activities of councils in the period leading up to the reorganisation of local government
Local Government (Finance) Bill
The purpose of this Bill is:
- to remove the requirements for district councils to gain departmental approval for the application of their funds, proceeds from sale of capital assets and borrowings
- to introduce certain new powers, including the power to invest
- to introduce a “prudential regime” for capital finance, along similar lines to that which operates in England and Wales
- to clarify the nature of the General Grant by replacing the two elements of the grant (the resources element and the de-rating element) with two separate grants – a rates support grant and a de-rating grant (the de-rating element of the General Grant compensates district councils for the loss of rate income due to the statutory de-rating of industrial properties)
- to introduce a power to allow all departments (not just the DOE) to pay grants to councils
- to enable the DOE to establish an independent remuneration panel to advise on the level of allowances for councillors and make it a requirement that councils publish information about the remuneration of councillors
Local Government (Reorganisation) Bill
The purpose of this Bill is:
to update the local government legislative framework and to reflect and give effect to the Executive’s decisions to provide more modern powers for the 11 new district councils through:
- new governance arrangements
- new ethical standards regime and Code of Conduct
- provisions on central / local government relations
- community planning and well-being
- performance management
- transitional provisions to provide for the transfer of functions, staff, assets / liabilities and so on from the current 26 councils to the new 11 councils
Further Information
More information on councils’ responsibilities that will be transferring from central government can be accessed through the links below.
Further subordinate legislation and regulatory guidance will underpin the new arrangements. This page will be updated when information is available.
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