Cameron and the state of local government finance, hypocricy or ignorance?

The Left has been quick to brand David Cameron ‘hypocritical’ because last week he wrote to complain to Oxfordshire County Council about cuts to local services in his Whitney Constituency. Surely he must be aware, they claim, that it is the financial constraits imposed by his own government that is causing the reduction in front line services to residents?

However, I am not sure that Cameron is being hypocritical  since hypocricy would imply that he has  a real understanding of the current state of local authority finances.  To my mind, his letter shows that this is not the case.  Rather he and his Government are actually only vaguely aware of the real difficulties now being experienced by many councils.

Perhaps, given the continuing need to do something about the level of national debt, it is easier for the government not to think too hard about the impact on councils of deep cuts in funding, past, present and future.  However, at the end of the day, anyone who gives it a moment's thought knows that one cannot keep hacking away at an organisation's cost base without some consequences.  There are certainly some councils that were very inefficiently run in the past.  These may well  have further fat to shed, but other more efficient operators, such as Suffolk County Council for example, are finding necessary cost reductions increasingly hard to find. 

Some Conservatives, in defence of the Prime Minister, have accused Oxford County Council of crying wolf....apparently the council started to warn of service cuts as long ago as 2010 and they have managed reasonably well to date.  Perhaps these warnings might have been premature, but there is no doubt in my mind that five years on OCC's complaints and fears are real.   A good deal of their grant from the centre has now disappeared, and there is only so far that one can go in reorganising and pruning the back office (as was suggested to them last week by Cameron). In any event  ultimately back office cuts if too extensive do impact on the front line. Moreover, research tells us  that faced with an impossible financial situation a council will cut services, even those that are statutory obligations,  rather than risk financial meltdown.

As I have written on this site before, earlier this year a report from the Independent Commission on Local Government Finance stated that when it came to financial strength 'local government is on a cliff edge'.  They criticised central Government for its lack of understanding with regard to the relative financial strength of different public bodies and their ability to withstand cuts which have been indiscriminately and equally imposed across the board.

Mr Cameron's letter provides further evidence that the ICLGA was right; so not a hypocrite perhaps, but certainly ignorant.