Somerset Council

Somerset Council, known until 2023 as Somerset County Council, is the local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England. Since 2023 it has been a unitary authority, being a county council which also performs the functions of a district council. The non-metropolitan county of Somerset is smaller than the ceremonial county, which additionally includes Bath and North East Somerset and North Somerset.

The council has been under Liberal Democrat majority control since 2022. It is based at County Hall in Taunton.

History
Elected county councils were established in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888, taking over administrative functions previously carried out by unelected magistrates at the quarter sessions. The city of Bath was considered large enough to run its own county-level services, and so it was made a county borough, independent from Somerset County Council. The county council was elected by and provided services to the rest of the county, which area was termed the administrative county.

The first elections were held on 23 January 1889 and the county council formally came into being on 1 April 1889, on which day it held its first official meeting at the Town Hall in Highbridge. The first chairman was Richard Paget, who had been the chairman of the quarter sessions which preceded the county council, and was also the Conservative MP for Mid Somerset. At that first meeting, the council debated where future meetings should be held. Some advocated that meetings should be held alternately at the Shire Hall in Taunton and the Town Hall in Wells, as the quarter sessions had been. The council decided to meet solely in Taunton. Councillors noted that although Wells was more central to the county, it was only served by branch line railways, whereas Taunton station had direct services to more destinations across the county.

When local government was reformed in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, Somerset ceded north-eastern parts of its territory to the new county of Avon, and the reduced Somerset was designated as a non-metropolitan county. The lower tier of local government was reorganised as part of the same reforms. Prior to 1974 it had comprised numerous boroughs, urban districts and rural districts. After 1974 the lower tier within the redefined Somerset comprised five non-metropolitan districts: Mendip, Sedgemoor, South Somerset, Taunton Deane, and West Somerset. In 2019, West Somerset and Taunton Deane were merged to form Somerset West and Taunton.

Avon was abolished in 1996, being divided into four unitary authorities. Two of them, Bath and North East Somerset and North Somerset, cover the areas that had been ceded by Somerset in 1974. For the ceremonial purposes of lieutenancy and shrievalty, those two districts were restored to Somerset as part of the 1996 reforms. However, they were not brought into the non-metropolitan county of Somerset. Since 1996 there have therefore been two differing legal definitions of Somerset in use: the non-metropolitan county, being the area administered by Somerset County Council (called Somerset Council since 2023), and the ceremonial county, which also includes Bath and North East Somerset and North Somerset.

Conversion to unitary authority
The first proposal to create a Somerset unitary authority was made in 2007, but was rejected in a local referendum.

The idea of replacing Somerset's two tiers of local government with unitary authorities was revived as part of the 2019–2023 structural changes to local government in England. The county council drew up initial plans for a single unitary authority in 2018. The district councils proposed an alternative model of two unitary authorities called East Somerset and West Somerset. A non-binding referendum of residents held in June 2021 expressed a preference for the two-authority proposal. Nevertheless, the government selected the plan for a single authority.

The way the change was implemented was to replace the four districts with a single district of Somerset matching the non-metropolitan county, but with no separate district council; instead the existing county council took on district-level functions, making it a unitary authority. As part of the changes, the county council was given the option of omitting the word 'county' from its name, which it took, becoming Somerset Council from 1 April 2023 when the changes took effect.

Governance
Somerset Council provides both county-level and district-level functions. The whole county is also covered by civil parishes, which form a second tier of local government.

Somerset Council appoints seven members to the Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Authority.

Political control
The council has been under Liberal Democrat majority control since 2022.

Political control of the council since the 1974 reforms has been as follows:

Two-tier non-metropolitan county council

Unitary authority

Leadership
The leaders of the council since 1993 have been:

Composition
Following the 2022 election and subsequent by-elections and changes of allegiance up to May 2024, the composition of the council was as follows:

Three of the independent councillors sit together as a group. The next election is due in 2027.

Elections
The last full review of electoral boundaries took effect in 2013, when the county was divided into 54 electoral divisions, each of which elected one councillor except for the Glastonbury and Street division which elected two. As part of the process leading up to becoming a unitary authority in 2023, the election that should have been held in 2021 was postponed until 2022, at which election the number of councillors was doubled. Each division then elected two councillors, and the old Glastonbury and Street division was divided into two divisions each of which elected two councillors, giving 110 councillors in total. The councillors who were elected in 2022 are due to serve an extended five-year term until 2027, after which elections will be held every four years.

Premises
The council has its headquarters at County Hall on The Crescent in Taunton, which was purpose-built for the council and opened in 1935. The complex has been subsequently extended, notably with a large tower block in the 1960s.

When first created in 1889, the council chose to meet at Shire Hall in Taunton, a courthouse completed in 1858 which had been one of the meeting places of the quarter sessions which preceded the county council. County Hall was built immediately to the east of Shire Hall to accommodate the council's offices, but full council meetings continued to be held in the council chamber at Shire Hall until 2020. In-person council meetings were suspended in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the resumption of in-person meetings in 2021, full council meetings have been held in various larger venues across the county, initially to allow for social distancing and since 2022 to accommodate the larger number of councillors.

The council has several other administrative buildings across the county, including the offices of the former district councils that it inherited in 2023. As at March 2024 the council was considering its options for how to reduce the number of buildings it operates.

Children's services
In January 2013, Ofsted inspectors gave Somerset Councils' Children’s Services the lowest rating of "inadequate".

In January 2015, Ofsted reinspected the Children’s Services Department and concluded that it remained "inadequate". The corresponding report found no improvement in the care provided by the children's services and described a "corporate failure" to keep children safe. Ofsted found there were "widespread or serious failures" which it considered placed children to be harmed or at risk of harm. The report also identified managers who "have not been able to demonstrate sufficient understanding of failures" and had been ineffective in "prioritising, challenging and making improvements".

In January 2015, Julian Wooster was appointed director of Children's Services, the fifth such appointment in five years.

In November 2017, the service was inspected by Ofsted. Services were judged to have improved, but still "require[d] improvement to be good" in all but one area. The report found that services for children needing help and protection required improvement, as did leadership, management and governance. The inspectors concluded that too many children in foster care experienced moves between placements before they were found the right home. Inspectors singled out adoption services as being "good".

In July 2022, the service was judged by Ofsted to be "good" in all areas, but found that two areas still needed improvement: placement sufficiency, and the take-up of return home interviews for children who have been missing.

Funding cuts
Somerset County Council needed to save £19.5million in 2017/18, but only cut £11.1million. Cuts were announced to highways, public transport and special needs services. Staff were told to take two days off unpaid for the coming two years. The chief executive said he had "no choice" because of cuts to central government funding. Further proposed cuts include reducing winter gritting, suspending 'park and ride' services, stopping funding for Citizens Advice, cutting adult social care and support for people with learning difficulties, cuts to the GetSet programme which helps stop vulnerable young people needing social care.

In July 2018, two senior Conservative councillors resigned over concerns regarding the council's handling of financial matters. Dean Ruddle and Neil Bloomfield had previously held roles as the respective chair and vice chair of the audit committee. An official audit of the council criticised its "pervasive" overspending and its failure to deliver sufficient savings over the previous 12months. In September 2018, the council voted through £28million of spending cuts, spread over the next two years. Critics of the cuts, including Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors, noted that between 2009 and 2016, Somerset's Conservative administration had voted to freeze Council Tax, when an increase of 1.9% would have brought in an additional £114million.

Following the change to unitary status, in November 2023 the council declared a financial emergency, projecting an overspend of £27million in that year and a deficit of £100million for 2024–2025, arising in part from an expected increase of £70million in the cost of adult social care. It was also reported that the council had inherited Council Tax arrears of more than £43million from the four district councils.

Notable members

 * Incomplete list, in chronological order


 * Sir Edward Strachey, 3rd Baronet (1889–1892)
 * Henry Hobhouse (from the 1890s), later Chairman of Council, also Member of Parliament for East Somerset
 * Sir Frank Beauchamp (1907–1946), created a baronet in 1918
 * Arthur Hobhouse (1925–1947), previously Member of Parliament for Wells, Chairman of Council 1940–1947
 * Geoffrey Waldegrave, 12th Earl Waldegrave (first elected 1937)
 * Sir John Wills, 4th Baronet (1958–1974, Ind.)
 * Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir John Slessor (1963–1974), previously Chief of the Air Staff
 * Richard Needham (1967–1974), later Member of Parliament for North Wiltshire
 * Sir Michael Gass (1977–1981), previously acting Governor of Hong Kong
 * Sir Chris Clarke (1985–2005), Leader of the council from 1993 to 2001
 * Elizabeth Gass, Lady Gass, member 1985 to 1997, later Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
 * David Heath (1985–1997), later Member of Parliament for Somerton and Frome
 * Susan Miller, Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (1989–2005), Liberal Democrat spokesman on Home Affairs
 * Jackie Ballard (1993–1997), later Member of Parliament for Taunton
 * Robin Bush (1997–2009), Chairman of Council 2001–2005, also a historian
 * Sarah Dyke (2022–present), also Member of Parliament for Somerton and Frome