Northamptonshire County Council

History

Elected county councils were created in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888, taking over administrative functions which had previously been performed by unelected magistrates at the quarter sessions. In Northamptonshire, the quarter sessions for the hundred of Nassaburgh in the north-east of the county had been held separately from those of the rest of the county since the 14th century. Nassaburgh was a liberty under the control of the Abbot of Peterborough and so also became known as the Soke of Peterborough. Its administrative independence from the rest of Northamptonshire was maintained in 1889 by being given its own Soke of Peterborough County Council, although it remained part of the geographical county of Northamptonshire for the purposes of lieutenancy.

The borough of Northampton was considered large enough for its existing borough council to provide county-level services, and so it was made a county borough, independent from the county council. The 1888 Act also directed that urban sanitary districts which straddled county boundaries were to be placed entirely in one county, which saw Northamptonshire cede its part of Market Harborough to Leicestershire and its part of Banbury to Oxfordshire. Northamptonshire County Council was elected by and provided services to the parts of the county (as thus adjusted) outside the Soke of Peterborough and county borough of Northampton. The county council's area was termed the administrative county.

The first elections were held in January 1889, and the county council formally came into being on 1 April 1889. On that day it held its first official meeting at the Sessions House in Northampton, the courthouse (completed 1678) which had served as the meeting place for the quarter sessions which preceded the county council. The first chairman of the council was John Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer, a Liberal peer, who had also been Lord Lieutenant of Northamptonshire since 1872. Finding the courtroom at the Sessions House was poorly suited for council meetings, the council shortly afterwards had a new council chamber built to the rear of the adjoining house to the west; the new chamber was completed in 1890 and the complex of buildings became known as County Hall.

Local government was reformed in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. Northamptonshire was reclassified as a non-metropolitan county, and the borough of Northampton was brought under the authority of the reformed county council. The lower tier of local government was reorganised as part of the same reforms. Previously it had comprised numerous boroughs, urban districts and rural districts; they were reorganised into seven non-metropolitan districts.

During the 1990s local government reform, Northampton tried to obtain unitary authority status, but failed.

Insolvency

Early in 2018 the county council announced that it "was effectively insolvent." In March 2018, a government-appointed investigator's recommended the council be broken up. It said the financial and management problems at the council were so deep-rooted that it was impossible to rescue it in its current form. The report rejected the council leadership's claim that it had been disadvantaged by government funding cuts and underfunded. It condemned the council's attempt to restructure services by outsourcing them to private companies and charities (the Next Generation Programme). It described the council's budgeting as "an exercise of hope rather than expectation".

Subsequently, the leader of the council, Heather Smith, resigned. The government appointed external commissioners to oversee the running of the council in May 2018.

Significant cuts were made to the council's spending, trying to overcome a funding shortfall of £70m from the council's £441m budget in 2018. The cuts were controversial; those affecting the library service were successfully challenged in court. The cuts were also reported to cause hardship to some families with special needs.

Different commentators had different views about the extent to which the council's financial problems were of its own making or attributable to the United Kingdom government austerity programme. Simon Butler, writing in The Guardian, described "a reckless half-decade in which it refused to raise council tax to pay for the soaring costs of social care, preferring to patch up budget holes with accounting ruses and inappropriate use of financial reserves".

In January 2019 the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government gave the council permission to raise its council tax by 5% in 2019–20 without the requirement for a local referendum.

In June 2019, the county council's children's services were rated "inadequate" by Ofsted inspectors. The report found that there were "highly vulnerable children in care who are living in unregulated placements that are unsafe and unsuitable". Earlier in the same month, two serious case reviews found that council's child protection services had failed to protect two murdered children.

In April 2019, the government confirmed that the county council and the county's seven district councils would all be abolished and replaced with two unitary authorities. The new areas were named North Northamptonshire (covering the abolished districts of Corby, East Northamptonshire, Kettering, and Wellingborough) and West Northamptonshire (covering Daventry, Northampton, and South Northamptonshire). The county council's last day was 31 March 2021, and the new authorities formally came into being on 1 April 2021.

Governance

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Northamptonshire County Council provided county-level functions. After the 1974 reforms, district-level functions were provided by the county's seven district councils (some of which were styled as boroughs, allowing them to have a mayor):

• Corby Borough Council
• Daventry District Council
• East Northamptonshire District Council
• Kettering Borough Council
• Northampton Borough Council
• South Northamptonshire District Council
• Borough Council of Wellingborough

Much of the county was also covered by civil parishes, which formed a third tier of local government for their areas.

Political control

Main article: Northamptonshire County Council elections

Political control of the council from the 1974 reforms until its abolition in 2021 was as follows:

Leadership

The leaders of the council from 1977 until the council's abolition in 2021 were:

Premises

Having held its first few meetings at the Sessions House before building a new council chamber at the adjoining house which became County Hall in 1890, the council then used County Hall as its meeting place until its abolition in 2021.

As the county council's responsibilities grew, it needed more office space than was available in the converted house which formed the main part of County Hall. The council acquired a former gaol (built 1791–1794) immediately south-east of the Sessions Room and County Hall, and converted that to be offices. In 1939 the council built a large neo-Georgian office building to the east of the old gaol, linked to the older buildings by corridors to the rear. The new building was called County Offices and had its main frontage onto Guildhall Road.

The county council's administrative responsibilities continued to grow, and by the early 21st century its offices were spread across some twelve buildings around Northampton. In 2013, it decided to build a single building in which council officers would be based on Angel Street, immediately south of County Hall. The new building was named "One Angel Square". The building cost £53m and was officially opened by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Sajid Javid, in October 2017, a few months before the extent of the council's financial problems was made public. The county council subsequently announced the sale and lease back of One Angel Square to Canada Life Investments, in order to raise funds for the provision of services, in February 2018.

References

References

1. (1914). "Kelly's Directory of Northamptonshire".
2. (1889). "A Handbook for County Authorities". W. Clowes and Sons.
3. {{NHLE
4. (6 April 1889). "Northamptonshire County Council: The First Meeting". Northampton Mercury.
5. (31 July 1890). "The Chairman and the Chamber". Northampton Chronicle and Echo.
6. {{NHLE
7. (6 February 2018). "Northamptonshire's cash crisis is a taste of things to come for councils". The Guardian.
8. Butler, Patrick. (15 March 2018). "Scrap Northamptonshire county council, inspectors say". The Guardian.
9. Paul Lynch. (15 March 2018). "Breaking News: Northamptonshire County Council's finance chief sacked after refusing to resign". Northampton Chronicle.
10. (3 June 2021). "Northamptonshire County Council: lessons learned report". Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
11. Patrick Butler. (1 August 2018). "Northamptonshire forced to pay the price of a reckless half-decade". The Guardian.
12. (2 August 2018). "Northamptonshire County Council: 'Radical' service cuts planned". BBC News.
13. (9 August 2018). "Northamptonshire council backs 'radical' cuts to services". BBC News.
14. Alison Flood. (14 August 2018). "Family claims win in high court challenge to Northants library cuts". The Guardian.
15. Hannah Richardson. (13 September 2018). "How children's services cuts are affecting one family". BBC News.
16. Butler, Patrick. (1 August 2018). "Northamptonshire's cash crisis driven by ideological folly, councillors told".
17. (29 January 2019). "Northamptonshire County Council: Five per cent council tax rise considered". BBC News.
18. Patrick Butler. (29 January 2019). "Northamptonshire's bankrupt council given OK for 2% tax hike". The Guardian.
19. (2019-07-29). "Under-fire council 'failing to keep children safe'".
20. (14 May 2019). "Northamptonshire: Unitary authorities plan approved". BBC News.
21. (14 February 2020). "AT LAST! Northamptonshire's new unitary councils are made law by parliament". Northampton Chronicle.
22. {{cite legislation UK. (1972)
23. {{cite legislation UK. (1973)
24. "Compositions Calculator". University of Exeter.
25. (12 May 2011). "Sir John Lowther". The Telegraph.
26. (29 November 1993). "The A to Z of Northamptonshire: K is for Kingsthorpe, Kilsby, Kings and Jimmy Kane". Northampton Chronicle and Echo.
27. (3 January 1984). "Teacher is Euro choice". Coventry Evening Telegraph.
28. (24 September 1994). "Fitting tribute to Sir William". Evening Telegraph.
29. (9 May 1991). "Sir Bill stands down". Daventry and District Weekly Express.
30. (4 February 1993). "Deputies named". Northampton Chronicle and Echo.
31. (4 May 1993). "Election '93". Northampton Evening Telegraph.
32. (7 May 1993). "Labour storms County Hall". Evening Telegraph.
33. (13 May 1998). "Council takes Mick as its new leader". Northampton Chronicle and Echo.
34. (2 December 2004). "Council leader to stand down". Daventry Express.
35. (14 October 2019). "The Lost Billions investigation: Authorities stuck with useless - but costly - buildings they cannot sell". Wigan Today.
36. (26 January 2016). "Jim Harker to step down as leader of Northamptonshire County Council in May". Daventry Express.
37. (12 May 2016). "New Northants County Council leader says new role is a 'blessing' as she unveils new look cabinet today". Daventry Express.
38. (15 March 2018). "Heather Smith quits as leader of Northamptonshire County Council". ITV News.
39. (12 April 2018). "New leader agreed at Northamptonshire County Council".
40. (7 May 2021). "Former leader speaks about the legacy of Northamptonshire County Council". Northampton Chronicle and Echo.
41. (3 December 2018). "Northants County Council halts sale of County hall". Northampton Chronicle and Echo.
42. {{NHLE
43. (3 November 1939). "New offices for County Council". Mercury and Herald.
44. (28 March 2018). "Controversial multi-million pound One Angel Square building shortlisted for architecture award". Northampton Chronicle and Echo.
45. (20 April 2016). "Galliford turns 12 offices into one in Northampton". Construction News.
46. (12 October 2017). "£53m project combines 12 council offices into one building". ITV.
47. "One Angel Square". Royal Institute of British Architects.
48. (13 February 2018). "Northamptonshire County Council to sell new £53m HQ". BBC.
49. (16 February 2018). "Cash-strapped Northamptonshire Council to sell its new BDP-designed HQ". Architects' Journal.
50. (16 April 2018). "Northamptonshire County Council's HQ sold in £64m deal". BBC.