Horsham council sets £200,000 budget for director to guide councils in county through devolution

The use of the money, which comes from the county’s business rates pool, was agreed during a meeting on Wednesday (March 19).

Under the national reorganisation plans, the district and borough councils across the county will be replaced with unitary authorities covering populations of at least 500,000 each.

The programme director will oversee and manage the development of a business case, to be approved by the councils. The case will then be put out to public consultation in the summer before being submitted to the government in September.

Chief executive officer Jane Eaton said that leaders from the other councils in West Sussex had agreed that Horsham would make the appointment – simply because, at the time, she had more time available than the other CEOs.

She added: “We need someone with experience of local government reorganisation. The candidate we’ve spoken to so far actually has experience from Somerset, Buckinghamshire and Dorset councils in doing this work.”

A second post, for a data analyst, is also likely to be needed, given the volume of data involved. That post would also be paid for via the £200,000 budget.