"I've always been happy for the local elections to go ahead and that remains the case. We were asked by government if there are capacity issues caused by local government reorganisation and there are. In my letter, I set out council's view that elections should go ahead but also acknowledged the capacity issues we face, dealing with the biggest change in local government for 50 years."

Councillor Susan Brown, Leader of Oxford City Council

Letter to Alison McGovern MP

Dear Alison McGovern,

Response regarding 2026 elections in Oxford City

I am writing in response to your letter of 18 December 2025 seeking views from leaders of 63 councils that are in the process of abolition through Local Government Reorganisation, on the postponement of local elections and specifically whether this could release essential capacity to deliver LGR effectively.

In Oxford elections take place every 2 years, with half of the councillors (one in each ward in the City) standing for a 4-year term. We support the conducting of regular elections, and our LGR bid includes maintaining elections every two years as a good way of regularly being accountable to the electorate.

In order to inform my response, I have sought the views of the Leaders of the opposition groups at Oxford City Council, asked my own Group and held a special council meeting to give all members of the council an opportunity to share their views to inform this response.

There are strong arguments for holding local elections this year, but there is also a case for postponing elections to a council that will not exist in two years' time at a time when we need capacity to prepare for new unitary councils and elections to shadow authorities in May 2027. We have submitted our LGR bid for three unitaries across Oxfordshire and West Berkshire and are keen to do everything we can to ensure that it is successful and that the transition to the new councils goes well.

Capacity Issues

Your letter asked specifically about the impact on capacity to deliver LGR effectively. These considerations in Oxford are as follows.

Holding elections this year represents an additional burden on already stretched resources. It will also cost the Council £250k – funds that might better be used to manage the transition to a new unitary authority.

As we have now entered the transition phase for LGR – working alongside neighbouring authorities - this will require an increasingly broad set of inputs from across the whole of the Council if we are to be ready for those elections to the new Shadow Authority in May 2027. This will place a considerable burden on senior staff, most notably the Chief Executive who is also the Returning Officer and Electoral Registration Officer and the Monitoring Officer who will have a critical role in LGR transformation process while dealing with queries and complaints on conduct issues during the pre-election period.

Government has set a challenging timetable for LGR and has required that councils keep to a minimum the external resourcing they utilise to deliver this. As a result, we have had to commit a significant amount of senior capacity from across the council in the development of our proposal for three unitary councils across Oxfordshire and West Berkshire already. This has placed a greater burden on us relative to other Oxfordshire councils. The County Council is much larger with more resources to put behind its one unitary proposal, while the two unitary proposal was produced by four district councils and an existing unitary which were able to pool resources.

The 2027 elections will be particularly complex as they may involve boundary changes, re-warding, the creation of new polling districts and the consolidation of electoral rolls. The additional workload will be further compounded by the fact that all town and parish councils in South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse and Cherwell districts and one third of the town and parish councils of West Oxfordshire will also be up for election in 2027. In total there will be over 200 town and parish council elections. Given the complexity and scale of work required to prepare for elections in 2027, it would be preferrable to enable that to start now, rather than post-May.

In addition to the considerations on capacity, I’m also conscious that under the terms of Section 24 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007, our Council will come under increasingly tight restrictions on expenditure, awarding contracts, asset disposals, senior recruitment and all other material decision-making over the coming months. The Cabinet, and the Council as a whole, will need to focus on enabling the process of winding the authority down rather than setting new direction in policy or service delivery.

As I understand it, under the requirements of LGR, as we wind down Oxford City Council, the shadow unitary council, which will be elected in 2027, must be involved in all key decisions on spending, recruitment, strategies and policies. This includes permission from the shadow authority on any capital spend over £1m and revenue spend over £100,000.

Views of Oxford City Councillors

However, notwithstanding the points made above about capacity issues, councillors have raised significant concerns about cancelling the elections. I attach the draft minutes of the council meeting that took place on 14th January to facilitate councillors to share their views. A majority of councillors are in support of elections going ahead in May this year.

In summary, the arguments against cancelling the elections are as follows. Councillors from all parties raised concerns that cancelling the elections would be anti-democratic and that residents should have a right to have a say on who is representing them and making decisions even if it about winding down the City Council and preparations for transition to a new authority in advance of elections to a new shadow authority in 2027. 

A number of councillors stated that if they could have certainty that the all-out elections to a new unitary authority would definitely take place in May 2027, there could be a case for postponing. However, given the experience of delays in previous rounds of LGR, they couldn’t be confident that this would be the case.

Many councillors expressed the view that postponing elections could negatively impact on residents’ confidence and trust in democracy and local government and accountability of decision making.

A number of councillors also did not feel that there was a case for postponing elections on capacity grounds, given that the Council is proposing a budget allocation of £2 million in 2026/27 to support this work. Whilst as a matter of necessity, we will ensure that sufficient resources and capacity are available to deliver LGR in any scenario, this will come from within the current budget and resource envelope and therefore will have an impact on other areas of the council’s work - as the Chief Executive made clear in her paper to council.

So in summary, the majority of councillors felt that elections should take place even if postponement would have a positive impact on the council’s capacity to deliver Local Government Reorganisation. We await your decision.

Yours sincerely,

Cllr Susan Brown

Leader, Oxford City Council

Council meeting

Minutes

Minutes of a meeting of the Council on Wednesday 14 January 2026.

Recording

Watch 'Full Council - Special Meeting - 14 January 2026' on YouTube (1 hour, 13 minutes, 59 seconds)