Is local government reform dead in the water? Plans for major overhaul of councils halted – BBC News Council officials that have spent the summer putting in place arrangements for new shadow council elections next May, will either be delighted or annoyed at the waste of precious resources or upset that the changes have been delayed.

The government cites new legal advice. I assume this means that they have been told that they would lose any Judicial Review of the process to reach the current stage of reorganisation.

I wonder whether the Treasury has taken a look at the proposals and said that the changes wouldn’t save money, and might cost more to operate the same services. Take Oxfordshire, where the proposals were for three unitary councils, each with a director of Children’s Services, at an extra cost of perhaps £300,000 plus on-costs for three Directors compared to the current one for the county. Multiply that by 17 councils, and that’s probably £3mn just for Children’s Services. Add just five new directors for other services that cannot be absorbed into the role of existing district council officer’s jobs, and the bill start to look very much like an expensive exercise. This is even before you add in the cost of Mayors for most of these areas.

So, what looks like a good example of poorly planned reorganisation of councils, is starting to look like an expensive waste of money. Hard luck on Surrey, whether the former county has already been split into two unitary councils, just as happened to Northamptonshire after the former county ran into financial trouble.

I cannot say that I am sorry for the pause, and will also not be sorry if reorganisation is kicked into the long grass, as I am not sorry. The prospect of funding fin Children’s services for areas with high needs for both SEND and children in care, being funded in the future only by a small number of council tax payers rather than spreading the cost over a wider area, as at present, was a frightening prospect.

Unless the current pause is short-lived, and that seems unlikely if the process was flawed, then even 2028 for a restart of shadow elections looks like a remote possibility.

Sorting out the relationship between councils and academies is a much bigger priority for me than shifting the arrangements for school admissions and other functions between existing and new councils.

I guess some officers may be looking at promotion opportunities disappearing, but I also guess councillors in Rutland, the smallest county, will be overjoyed, as may be those councillors nearer home in West Berkshire, as they may well be able to remain as a separate unitary council rather than being swallowed up into the new Ridgeway Council.

However, everyone will really want an outcome decided, as a pause is in nobody’s interest, whatever their outcome might be.