Post Conference blues

The Party Conference season is gradually drawing to a close.  I have found it depressing how little attention has been paid by the Parties to the issue of Local Government Finance.  I suppose it was too much to ask that this pressing issue might be addressed before the General Election in May next year.  I just hope that it is taken up with necessary urgency thereafter.

Meanwhile, while the grandees fiddle in Birmingham, Glasgow etc.  life for anyone getting on with trying to balance the budget at the County Council becomes increasingly challenging by the day.

Coming to the Cabinet next week is a paper from the Adult Care area outlining two areas of service that are mandatory, but for which there is no visible funding stream at present.   Bridging the gap out of our own resources is somewhat challenging, given that we have to find £120million of savings over the next three years.

The first issue perhaps might not have been foreseen by Government since it relates to the outcome of a Supreme Court decision about assessments for those in care.  Due to the ruling the need for these time consuming and expensive procedures will increase exponentially.  I will not burden you with the detail (the cabinet paper is on the website for anoraks among you).  Suffice it to say that apparently this is going to add an additional £500,000 to our budgets on an annual basis.  Legislative change to remedy the matter cannot, I understand be expected, for three years at least.

The second is the issue of how the Care Act is to be funded.   This legislation was passed earlier this year, and imposes a number of new responsibilities on Local Authorities, including the need to work with those who fund their own care for the first time. As things stand at present there is a significant shortfall between what is being offered by Government and what we, and other councils, estimate that we will need to fulfil our obligations.

None of this fills me with much confidence about Central Government’s understanding of the pressure that they are currently placing on Local Authorities.   This view was compounded when I read the following recently:-

‘The Local Government Association has warned that almost three in every four local councils will abandon or scale back welfare schemes designed to provide emergency help for England's most vulnerable citizens from next April because of cuts. One in six local authorities said they would be unable to afford to run a crisis safety-net scheme at all if the government goes ahead with plans to cancel its £175m-a-year local welfare grant from next year. Claire Kober, a Haringey councillor and chair of the resources board of the LGA, said: “If government pulls the plug on funding from April, many local authorities will be unable to afford to make up the difference. For some local authorities, where budgets are already on the brink, they will have no choice but to close their local welfare assistance schemes down altogether.”

The DWP said the government expected local authorities to "act responsibly" and to continue to provide local welfare services.’

Yeah….right DWP, but is it acting responsibly to ask local government to increasingly run its services on thin air?