Suffolk Chamber of Commerce’s asks of Local Government Reorganisation proposals

Suffolk Chamber believes that, as with the devolution of some funding and powers to a Norfolk & Suffolk Mayoral Authority, the abolition of Suffolk County Council and the boroughs and districts under Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) into a smaller number of unitary authorities offer opportunities to improve how councils assist growing businesses. 

We have sent both groups of existing councils the following business-friendly set of principles which we believe their respective bids for Government backing should incorporate:

Greater efficiency: with a reduction in the number of councils, and through prudent investment in new technologies, we would expect ongoing efficiencies to be realised in back-office functions and therefore greater investment in improvements in relevant day-to-day business-facing functions, including planning, environmental health and licensing 

Better economic development delivery: LGR in Suffolk offers an opportunity to reformat existing economic development functions to align better with the ambitions of the Suffolk Business Board, achieve greater countywide impact through better cross-border coordination and improved involvement of business representative organisations, such as Suffolk Chamber, in delivering key programmes and projects 

SME-friendly procurement: LGR in Suffolk affords a chance to both standardise and reset local councils’ procurement policies and approaches in order to give greater weighting to social value criteria and boost the Suffolk SME circular economy, including via closer cooperation with the Suffolk Supply Chain 

Forums for Suffolk-wide collaborative working: we would expect that the broadly collaborative culture across the public sector in working with Suffolk Chamber and other business representative organisations, such as the Suffolk Business Board and the Suffolk Public Sector Leaders’ Group be continued and further improved upon to ensure that the needs and experiences of businesses are central to the new councils’ delivery plans. 

Advocacy alignment: furthermore, we would expect that the political and managerial leadership in any Suffolk unitary system remains aligned with the evidenced countywide economic advocacy asks of Government coming out of Suffolk Chamber’s The Suffolk Convention 1 summit last year (and subsequent summits) and ensures an effective and coherent relationship with the North & Suffolk Mayoral Combined Authority