‘THE most important local government decision in a generation’ will be taken by a meeting of the full council.

The Weymouth and Portland Borough Council management committee declined to recommend a move to a unitary authority with several councillors stating that while the move is ‘inevitable’ it is ‘not something I can recommend’.

Major decisions are made by full council – which will meet on Thursday (26) – but the management committee is asked to recommend proposals.

Cllr Andy Blackwood requested that rather than recommending replacing county, district and borough councils with two unitary councils, that the WPBC management committee ‘asks full council to make a decision whether’ they agree with the proposals. The committee voted unanimously in favour of the amendment.

It comes as Cllr Ray Nowak called for local government to ‘stand up for itself’ and that unitary proposals are merely ‘reshuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic’.

He added: “We are not doing justice to voters in suggesting that this is the solution. The solution is funding.

“Most people think we are not doing the job effectively, they do not understand, and why should they, the mechanics and funding of local government. All they see is we put up council tax year on year and they get less services. That’s all my constituents see. They do not realise we are working with our hands tied behind our backs.

“I think it’s inevitable but I cannot support the recommendations.”

The meeting heard that WPBC will have to pay back £500,000 per year to the government by 2019/20 as the Revenue Support Grant – previously the money paid from central to local government to fund services – becomes negative.

In response to questions from councillors, strategic director Jason Vaughan said this had not been foreseen because it was assumed that when RSG was scrapped, the grant would be nothing, rather than becoming negative.

Leader of the council Jeff Cant said the move would save money and help more people understand how local government works.

He added: “This is one of the biggest things that will happen in our lifetime in terms of public governance. The conservative estimate is that one-off costs would be £25m including redundancies and annual savings would be £26m. I have great sympathy with issues about funding but we need to get this right or the consequences may be a lot worse in terms of service cuts.

“The average person in the street does not understand particularly well who is providing what services. Setting up a unitary does give us the opportunity for everything to be co-ordinated by one body.”

Cllr Kevin Brookes urged the committee to view the unitary authority as ‘an opportunity to move forward and get the structures right’ while Cllr Blackwood added: “This is not being done for positive developmental improvement. We are getting the stuffing knocked out of us. We do not have any other option.”