Wendy Nichols, Branch Secretary for the North Yorkshire branch of Unison has said that Unison in North Yorkshire support County Council’s proposal to create a two council model for North Yorkshire.
A vote hasn’t been taken to establish the views of their members, so this is the view of the union management team.
Dave Houlgate, Harrogate Local Government Branch of UNISON, said:
Our Branch (Harrogate Local Government Branch of UNISON) does not support that position.
We are guided by the feedback we’ve had from our Branch members and are minded to support the District Council’s East/West proposal.
County Council have declined to answer our questions or provide anyone for interview – this information came from a press release.
The Government has invited councils in North Yorkshire to submit proposals to create unitary or single-tier authorities, to pave the way for a mayoral-led combined authority.
That means that the current seven district councils and single county council would be replaced by one authority or more delivering all public services.
North Yorkshire County Council has set out a plan to bring all district and county services under two organisation covering the existing county boundaries and delivering all services.
District and borough councils have put forward a proposal to create two new councils covering North Yorkshire, – an east to west split.
Wendy Nichols, Branch Secretary for the North Yorkshire branch of Unison, represents over 5,500 members in North Yorkshire County Council has said she supports the county council proposal.
Wendy Nichols, Branch Secretary for the North Yorkshire branch of Unison:
Our collective view is that the county council’s proposal is best-placed to protect existing services and staff.
We’ve reviewed the different proposals and believe that bringing together services under a single pre-existing council would be the most effective way of minimising disruption from this change and realising the long-term benefits more quickly.
Splitting up services into multiple new councils would create unnecessary bureaucracy and disruption, both to our members and the communities they serve.
