Rutland County Council will be holding a special meeting on Tuesday 11th February at the main Council Chamber to allow Councillors to discuss devolution and local restructuring. 

This comes following a Devolution White Paper published by the Government in December outlining their plans to make all councils with a total population under 1.5 million people to become part of new unitary councils. 

According to the council, a report explaining the current position with regards to devolution and local government reorganisation will be published before the meeting, outlining as much information as possible so the Councillors are able to discuss the issue openly. 

Leader of Rutland County Council Gale Waller said: "Devolution has the potential to be beneficial for our communities but only if done in the right way. This is why we want to engage positively with the government and our near neighbours. Together, we are among the councils who need to explore reorganisation before we can consider progressing onto devolution – this remains the focus of our discussions.  

"To move forward with local government reorganisation, further work is needed to develop firm proposals that explore all options. We need to consider evidence around the critically important relationship between scale and physical geography. As I have said previously, Councils perform best when their boundaries reflect the way people live their lives. 

"We must have a confirmed position on reorganisation before we can agree to devolution, and we must explore all options in a way that is led by evidence. The government has indicated that interim proposals for reorganisation need to be submitted by March – although we're still waiting for confirmation of the precise date. It is important that Councillors who represent our communities here in Rutland are able to publicly debate and discuss what's being asked of us, which is why a special council meeting is being convened."