local authorities

Joint East Midlands mayor plan would ‘consign Leicestershire to division two’

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I hear very few rural voices in the machinations linked the current moving of the deck chairs around on the Titanic in terms of the latest round of (in terms of the real challenges we face) side show that is local government reform. As someone who has lived in the “East Midlands” region all my life I would suggest that this controversy is about Nottingham, Derby and Leicester… This story tells us:

Leaders in Leicestershire have expressed anger at the region being excluded from a first of its kind devolution deal for the east Midlands, saying it will be “relegated to the second division”.

On Tuesday, plans for a groundbreaking devolution deal between Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire were announced, which would see the areas grouped as a Mayoral Combined County Authority (MCCA), led by one mayor, and which would receive £1.14bn funding over 30 years.

The plans are part of a new devolution model that would be introduced once the levelling up and regeneration bill is passed, and it is hoped the first mayoral elections in the region would take place in May 2024.

But some said the exclusion of Leicestershire and Leicester, the most populous urban area in the east Midlands, situated about 30 miles south of Nottingham and Derby, would harm the region in the long term.

Slough goes bankrupt after discovery of £100m ‘black hole’ in budget

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This story is about Slough but Copeland, Peterborough and Redcar and Cleveland, which feature in the story, all have significant rural components. It explains how the pressure is bearing down on many local authorities. It tells us:

Slough is the third English council to become effectively insolvent in the past three years, following Northamptonshire and Croydon, and its predicament reflects a much wider precariousness in local government. The National Audit Office warned in March at least 25 authorities were on the brink of bankruptcy.

Eight councils, including Slough, were told earlier this week they faced an independent government-commissioned review into their finances as ministers decided whether to bail them out financially. The others are Bexley, Copeland, Eastbourne, Luton, Peterborough, Redcar & Cleveland, and Wirral.

Although Slough said its finances had been hit hard by the impact of Covid – leading to a collapse in council tax and business rates income – a report by its chief financial officer, Steven Mair, made clear the problems were deep-rooted and linked to accounting errors, lax financial controls and poor decisions.

“Slough’s financial problems have not arisen in the past few months. The approach to financial decision-making, leadership and management, processes, quality assurance and review etc that has been adopted by the council over a number of years was not robust and consequently highly detrimental to the council,” Mair’s report said.

Many of the problems recently uncovered related to previous years, the report said, and had they been know about at the time it is likely that the council would have been unable to meet its legal duties to set a legally balanced budget – raising the prospect it could have been technically insolvent as early as 2019.

‘It’s tearing us all apart’: housing plans in Sussex turn nimby against nimby

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When rural places overheat in terms of housing pressures this is how it begins to feel….

Horsham district council will reveal this week where it intends to locate new settlements to meet government housing targets, with rival developers parading nine plans to build estates of up to 7,000 homes each on fields edged by areas of outstanding natural beauty and the South Downs national park.

The plans face an array of nimby opposition groups whose interests conflict, increasing community tensions and political discontent. The Conservative council is also “hopelessly divided”, said one developer, and a council source said ever-increasing housing targets sent from Whitehall were causing exasperation. The strategy will go to a full council vote at the end of the month.

“What is tearing us all apart is that when we win, others lose,” said Dave Tidey, a leading member of one of the opposition groups. “It doesn’t work. The government is standing back and letting the local authorities fall apart.”

Residents fear the destruction of habitats for turtle doves and purple emperor butterflies, as well as traffic chaos, with enough houses planned to accommodate a town the size of Dover.

Northamptonshire elections bring hope of fresh start after years of turmoil

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As we go to the polls on Thursday a new landscape is emerging in Northamptonshire. Let’s hope this new structure is more capable of tackling the social care funding crisis than its predecessor…..

Home to what was once branded the worst-run council in the country, local elections this week mark the start of a new chapter for Northamptonshire.

After years of council turmoil including bankruptcy, a corruption scandal and failing social services, when people head to the polls on Thursday they’ll be voting for the first time to elect two new unitary authorities hoping to start afresh.

It’s the first local elections in the area since 2017, after the vote was delayed first for the restructuring process and then Covid. “It’s been a long time coming, we haven’t had an election for years, so I think everybody is keen to see democracy in Northamptonshire again,” said Robin Burgess, the chief executive of the Hope Centre in Northampton, which works to address poverty in the town.

Revealed: NHS could take over social care, swelling budget to £150bn

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Much food for thought in terms of cash strapped rural local authorities here:

Social care could be brought under the control of the NHS in England in a controversial move that would cause the health service’s budget to soar to £150bn, the Guardian has learned.

Downing Street has drafted in David Cameron’s former policy chief Camilla Cavendish to help finalise proposals designed to honour Boris Johnson’s pledge to “fix the crisis in social care”.

Under plans being examined by Cavendish and ministers, the government would take responsibility for social care services away from councils in England – together with the £22.5bn in annual funding – and hand it to the NHS, the Guardian understands. On Monday night the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) denied it had plans to merge the two public services.

The proposed merger would be designed to make it easier for frail older people, as well as vulnerable children and the disabled, to access the care they need and ease the strain on an overburdened NHS.

Experts warned that a merger would create problems for councils and the NHS. Nigel Edwards, the chief executive of the Nuffield Trust, said: “We would have several concerns about a radical shift of powers away from local authorities to put the sector under the control of larger NHS bodies. These large areas [ICSs] might be a bit remote to really understand what’s going on in social care. 

They also don’t really exist as institutions yet, so giving them huge new powers as they start up would be a dramatic and potentially disruptive shift for both the NHS and councils.

“There would be a risk that this makes social care less joined up with other council services vulnerable people rely on, like housing and public health.”

Harry Quilter-Pinner, an associate director of the IPPR thinktank, said: “At its best, integrated care can overcome fragmentation and deliver better outcomes for older people. But policymakers have been talking about delivering integrated care for decades. The truth is it is hard to achieve and stripping local government of its responsibility for social care is a controversial way of going about it.

Ministers can intervene if councils slow to act on local lockdowns, says Johnson

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Looks like the pressure is about to ramp up considerably on local authorities as the challenge and blame for local lockdowns is set to be passed to us! This story tells us:

Ministers will gain new powers to intervene if local authorities do not act quickly enough against coronavirus outbreaks, Boris Johnson has said.

In a series of tweets, Johnson announced ministers would be able to close “whole sectors or types of premises” in a given area, impose localised stay-at-home orders, prevent people entering or leaving certain areas, limit the maximum number of people at a gathering and reduce transport in local areas. This would be “guided by evidence”, he said.

Johnson added the details would be outlined in draft regulations published next week.

From Saturday, local councils have gained greater powers to help avert local lockdowns, including the ability to shut down shops, events and close public outdoor spaces.

Councils under huge pressure as number of children in care soars

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I’m sorry so early into the new year to be running another story about services local authorities can’t fund – but stories like this and their implications for rural families can’t be ignored. This story tells us:

The number of children in care has gone up by 28% in the past decade with council leaders warning of unsustainable pressure being placed on support services for young people.

Official figures show there are now 78,150 children in care in England, up from 75,370 in 2018 and almost 20,000 more than in 2009 when 60,900 children were looked after.

The Local Government Association (LGA) warned the huge increase in demand, combined with funding shortages, is putting immense pressure on the ability of councils to support vulnerable young people who need help.

Judith Blake, the chair of the LGA’s children and young people board, said the demands being placed on councils were “unsustainable”. “These figures show the sheer scale of the unprecedented demand pressures on children’s services and the care system this decade,” she said.

Councils were forced to overspend on their children’s social care budgets by almost £800m last year in order to try and keep children safe, the LGA said. This happened despite them allocating more money than in the previous year to try to keep up with demand.

Data shows councils have experienced a 53% increase in children on child protection plans – an additional 18,160 children – in the past decade.

There has been a 139% increase in serious cases where the local authority believes a child may be suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm, to 201,170 cases.

Hinkley Point B nuclear power station safety zone reviewed

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As if local authorities didn’t have enough to worry about they are now responsible for a wider duty of care in relation to nuclear power stations if they have one – in every case this will be an issue a rural authority is grappling with. I wonder if they do much networking?

People close to Hinkley Point B in Somerset are being asked whether the emergency planning zone round the nuclear plant should be altered.

Currently the zone has a two-mile (3.5 km) radius, which includes Stogursey village and some smaller communities.

But the government has asked local councils to review whether that should change.

Earlier this year, the government changed the law, which means local councils now have responsibility for setting the size and shape of emergency planning zones instead of the Office for Nuclear Regulation.

If there was a radiation leak, a series of measures would be taken for those living within the emergency zone.

This includes evacuation advice and the issuing of iodine tablets.

A new report from EDF Energy says the zone should cover at least 1km, but has not stated any recommendation.

UK ‘is failing to protect wildlife habitats’, new EU report shows

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Looks like we’re not the wonderful exemplar some people would have you believe when it comes to issues such as habitats and animal welfare! This article (and don’t forget many rural local authorities have significant land holdings) tells us:

With the environment high on the agenda at the G7 summit in Biarritz this weekend, the data will be an embarrassment to ministers who have repeatedly pledged to protect the environment – despite imposing savage cuts on England’s statutory nature conservation agency, Natural England.

Under the EU’s habitats and birds directive, member states commit to improve the physical protection of individual specimens and the conservation of core breeding and resting sites for rare and threatened species. The EU also sets rules regarding animal welfare and works with the international community to fight illegal wildlife trade.

Member states have to report every six years on progress. But the draft figures for the UK for 2013-2018 show it faring worse than many other member states and making no progress on key measures.

During the period, the draft data show 82% of the UK’s designated habitats to be in “bad” or “poor” condition, unchanged from the last reporting period of 2007-12. The percentage in a “bad” state was 71%, compared with 36% in Germany and 32% in France.

Labour to give councils power to seize boarded-up shops

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I’ve worked in a number of local authorities where town centre’s are blighted by the scourge of absentee landlords. On the basis of which I think this is a jolly fine policy idea!

Labour will allow councils to seize abandoned shops to give them a new lease of life as cooperatives or community centres, a policy designed to revive struggling high streets.

Jeremy Corbyn is expected to announce the shake-up on a visit to a high street in Bolton on Saturday, calling the sight of boarded-up shops a “symptom of economic decay” which is lowering living standards.

Under the Labour proposals, local authorities could offer properties which had been vacant for 12 months to startups, cooperative businesses and community projects.

The policy was prompted by a study by the Local Data Company which found more than 10% of town centre shops were empty. About 29,000 retail units are estimated to have been left empty for at least a year, according to the study, which found that the high-street vacancy rate rose last year to 11.5% and that 4.8% of vacant space on high streets had been vacant for more than two years. In shopping centres, that number rose to 5.8%.

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