Except many upper-tier authorities already share services. Herefordshire and Worcestershire share social services, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire have a shared highways function, and here, Leicestershire and Rutland already share services. Option two retains exactly what we have now: a county council that is around £100 million in debt and is projected to reach £450 million of debt related to SEN education within four years. If change is going to happen, which I do not think it needs to, as I do not think the current system is broken, then we have to try something new rather than repeat the same model that has already been shown not to work. Option three at least retains some of the identities of the boroughs and districts, which, because of the issues they deal with, understand what local residents want better than a single large county council that is more removed from the needs of the people who actually live here
