Council amalgamations !

New South Wales has 152 local councils and the $ 1.8 million Sanson report into their finances and viability suggests that amalgamation has become a necessity.  Some of these smaller councils are just hanging on financially because of annual grants from the state government.

Premier Barry O'Farrell is resisting forced amalgamations because one of the policy planks he carried to his election win was a promise to retain the status quo.    It seems that there will be no action until this matter is resolved in a fresh public discussion prior to the next state election.

We have an ever decreasing patchwork of councils from the days when each suburb of many cities and towns was a village far separated from one another.   The local council was responsible for the roads and footpaths - and providing a tip to accommodate the residents rubbish.   Each council today has a vastly expanded community role.

Today's councils have a responsibility to manage street parking, inspect food premises for hygiene, provide a pet shelter and dog pound, collect household rubbish, provide libraries and pre-school centres - and manage a work force that is one of the biggest sources of employment in their statistical area.    Councils are big business - with rates running into millions of dollars.

Rate rises are pegged to inflation and the size of each council places a limit on the services it can provide.   The number of residents serviced by each councillor can be as low as 150 or as high as 20,000.

There is no doubt that amalgamation has it's merits from a functional point of view.  It provides economy of scale and avoids the duplication of machinery that is necessary - but infrequently used.   Some progress has been already made in pooling plant between councils to share these costs.

Most ratepayers hate the very idea of forced amalgamations.    They fear that their needs will be " forgotten " by a huge behemoth that controls a vast area and that this will destroy the cozy relationship whereby they can contact their local councillor - and  " get things done ! "

There is a certain inevitability about the shrinking of council boundaries and the coming of mega councils.   At the end of the second world war, the number of councils was huge compared with the present day.  The amalgamations usually happened by sheer necessity - and against the wishes of the residents involved.  What is on the horizon now is just the natural progression of cost cutting to fit within the rates income pool.

It may not proceed within this term of government because of an election promise, but the alternative is declining services - and a bigger rates bill each year !