Council funding freeze ‘means cuts to many essential services’
I know Gary Porter and I am impressed with what must be a difficult political challenge for him in making the case for better resourcing of those issues where local government has been left “holding the baby” This report tells us:
A senior Conservative peer has warned that councils will need to slash a range of essential services after ministers released a funding settlement for councils that offered no additional money during 2017/18.
Gary Porter, who chairs the Local Government Association, said authorities would have to cut back on filling potholes, collecting waste, maintaining parks and running children’s centres and libraries in order to plug growing funding gaps.
He expressed “huge disappointment” about the decision not to increase funding, warning that while councils would impose tax rises, the money would not be enough to prevent services, including social care, from being hit.
“Councils, the NHS, charities and care providers remain united around the desperate need for new government funding for social care,” said Lord Porter. “By continuing to ignore these warnings, social care remains in crisis and councils and the NHS continue to be pushed to the financial brink.”
The head of the body representing hundreds of councils across England and Wales was responding to the Local Government Finance Settlement, published late on Monday without any notification to the media.
He said that council tax rises were inevitable because of funding constraints but said that wasn’t enough because the extra revenue was being swallowed up to pay for the government’s “national living wage”.
“Social care faces a funding gap of at least £2.6bn by 2020,” he said. “It cannot be left to council taxpayers alone to try and fix this.”
Porter urged ministers not to ignore the issue, which caused anger when it was not addressed during the autumn statement. He said he hoped next month’s budget would take “urgent steps” to help the situation.