Pothole repairs, recycling services and adult social care could all bear the brunt of a wave of cuts expected to impact local authorities – with fears those in rural areas losing out the most.

Richard Vaughan inews.co.uk

Some councils are bracing for up to 11 per cent cuts to their budgets as Rachel Reeves prepares to slash local government spending.

The Chancellor is under mounting pressure to further squeeze public spending after official figures showed borrowing costs overshot forecasts as she tries to stick to her fiscal rules and keep the public finances on track ahead of the spring statement on Wednesday.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics released on Friday showed that public sector net borrowing was £10.7 billion in February, £4.2 billion more than had been forecast by the Government’s official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), and more than some economists had been expecting.

Borrowing over the financial year to date was up nearly £15 billion on the same period a year before, the ONS said, while spending was also up, prompting economists to warn the Chancellor faces increasingly “tough decisions” on the public finances next Wednesday.

Isabel Stockton, senior researcher for the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), said the data “underscore the challenges facing the Chancellor as we head into the week of the spring statement”.

“Having boxed herself in with promises to meet her fiscal targets, not to raise taxes further and not to return to austerity for public services, easy or risk-free options for the Chancellor are in short supply,” Stockton said.

Reeves has ruled out introducing more tax rises, The i Paper understands, meaning spending on unprotected government departments – those outside of health, schools and defence – will bear the brunt of the spending restraint.

Fears in local government

The potential for further cuts to local government funding has prompted serious jitters within government ranks with Communities Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner understood to have criticised the plans in last week’s Cabinet meeting.

A Labour MP told The i Paper: “Local government has been hammered so much. People really feel local services disappearing and that just carrying on would be really, really difficult. So that’s a real danger point for us.”

County councils believe they face deeper cuts than other local authorities – up to 11 per cent over the parliament – in next week’s Spring Statement and forthcoming spending review due to a change in how the Government will fund local authorities.

Ministers are currently undertaking a review into the funding formula for councils, and authorities representing more rural areas believe the criteria will be heavily skewed towards levels of deprivation, meaning more money will be funnelled towards urban, Labour-run local authorities.

Cllr Tim Oliver, leader of Surrey County Council and chair of the County Councils Network, told The i Paper: “They are looking at how they distribute the funding as part of their new fair funding formula. Our concern is what metrics are they going to look at?

“We saw in the Budget that some ringfenced funding, called the Recovery Grant, was based solely on deprivation, while they cut the rural services grant. So if the rumours are true [that local government funding will be cut] we could be looking at cuts of up to 11 per cent over time.”

Services struggling

Councils have warned that chronic underfunding from the Government has left many services struggling, despite record rises to council tax over the last three years, insisting several frontline services will be affected with fresh cuts.

Local authorities have statutory obligations to provide for adult and child social care as well special educational needs provision, but Oliver warned that even these areas could be cut back.

“The biggest area of demand county councils face is adult social care, which is not deprivation driven,” Oliver said. “We have statutory levels we have to deliver, but there is discretion in topping those up.”

This would mean reducing the number of hours of support for those in need, at a time when “people are also losing their benefits, so we would be severely impacting their quality of life,” Oliver added.

Road maintenance budgets would also be the first to be cut, including repairing potholes and carrying out bridge maintenance, while plans for specialist education facilities will be shelved. Efforts to increase recycling will also be hit, with money for recycling centres being cut to fill funding gaps.

“It does feel as if rural communities are being put under considerable pressure,” Oliver said. “It feels as if there are certain sectors across the country that are potentially now being left behind, and that can’t be right. There has to be equality for all types of different communities, whether those are metropolitan, town, cities or rural areas.”

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A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said:  “This is untrue speculation. This government is under no illusions about the financial issues facing councils and we are determined to make progress on the inheritance we’ve been left.

“That’s why we’re allocating £69 billion to council budgets across England, reforming the funding system and bringing forward the first multi-year funding settlement in a decade, so we can deliver better public services and drive forward our Plan for Change.”

This Labour reorganisation is beginning to look like it has the potential to set neighbour against neighbour.

Oh, and don’t forget Exeter’s “Exeter Centric” option.

Exeter proposes a unitary authority which includes parts of East Devon, Teignbridge and Mid Devon in order to cover a population of between 300,000 and 350,000 (with potential to grow to 500,000) to meet the criteria. – Owl

‘Plymouth has no experience of delivering rural services’

Guy Henderson – Local Democracy Reporter www.radioexe.co.uk 

Plymouth has been accused of ‘over-stretching’ its bid to absorb 13 South Hams parishes in a major local government shake-up.

“What business does Plymouth have, pushing so far out?” Cllr Chris Oram (Lib Dem, Bickleigh and Cornwood) asked a meeting of South Hams Council. “This Plymouth plan should be robustly resisted.”

The government has begun a nationwide move to do away with district councils in favour of larger unitary authorities, and Plymouth plans to absorb part of the South Hams in a bid to hit a population target for setting up one of the new unitary councils.

The move has been condemned as a ‘land grab’ by critics.

South Hams Council says Plymouth has no idea how to provide services in rural areas, and should look west to Saltash and Torpoint instead.

Local councillors also believe the government has underestimated the complexity of restructuring Devon’s complicated council structures.

A meeting of the full South Hams Council endorsed what is dubbed the  ‘1-4-5’ option for re-organising Devon, a strategy favoured by all seven of the county’s district councils.

It would mean Plymouth standing alone, with one new council taking in South Hams, West Devon, Torbay and Teignbridge, and another containing Exeter, East Devon, Mid Devon, North Devon and Torridge.

South Hams leader Julian Brazil (Lib Dem, Stokenham) told members the 1-4-5 option would still create financial uncertainty, but was the best solution for the people of Devon.

Cllr David Hancock (Lib Dem, South Brent) said of the Plymouth strategy: “This clearly is a land grab, and we should make it quite clear that we are opposed to it. It will be to the detriment of our residents who live in the 13 parishes.

“Plymouth City Council is very urban and has no affinity with the rural parts of the South Hams.”

Cllr Nicky Hopwood (Con, Woolwell) agreed, and said: “Plymouth has no experience of delivering rural services. It has no idea about interacting with the farming community.”

Cllr Lee Bonham (Lib Dem, Loddiswell and Aveton Gifford) warned that the costs of the re-organisation would be high.

“Maybe people don’t care too much about who ruins their council,” he said. “But they will care if their costs go up and their services are reduced. We need to be honest and say that those things are likely to happen as a result of this.”

Some councillors had misgivings over the confrontational tone of the motion they were voting on, and questioned the use of the phrase ‘land grab’. They also acknowledged that some people in the 13 parishes might actually want to be part of Plymouth, and should be fully consulted.

Twenty four councillors voted in favour of the motion to back the 1-4-5 solution and resist the Plymouth expansion, with just one abstention.

The 13 parishes which would increase Plymouth’s population to 300,000 are Bickleigh, Shaugh Prior, Sparkwell, Brixton, Wembury, Cornwood, Harford, Ugborough, Ivybridge, Ermington, Yealmpton, Holbeton and Newton and Noss.

Jim McMahon’s invitation to Devon Council leaders to submit options for reorganisation of local government has opened a can of worms  [He is Minister of State for Local Government and English Devolution].

He obviously intended councils to work together to provide a single proposal. Read his lips:

“I am writing to you now to formally invite you to work with other council leaders in your area to develop a proposal for local government reorganisation….”

Instead he has received ten different options, with County submitting five of them. 

The five Labour councillors present at the debate to agree the final submission voted against because it failed to include an “Exeter-centric” option.

Now we wait to see what Jim McMahon, a metropolitan through and through,  makes of it all! – Owl

Labour votes against Devon’s council revamp proposals

Bradley Gerrard, local democracy reporter www.radioexe.co.uk 

Labour has vented anger over the absence of an Exeter-centric option for how Devon’s councils could be revamped.

All five Labour councillors present at a Devon County Council meeting to debate what to suggest to the government voted against the motion.

The county council has put forward five proposals ahead of the biggest changes to local councils in decades.

Cllr Yvonne Atkinson (Labour, Alphington & Cowick) said she couldn’t support the council’s proposals “for the very good reason that it doesn’t include a greater Exeter option”.

“I take issue with the fact that an Exeter option has not been put into this report,” she said at a special council meeting convened at Devon’s County Hall a day before proposals have to be submitted on Friday.

“This council has supported the Exeter local transport plan, which recognises the travel to work area, but no options reflecting this have been included.”

Cllr Atkinson complained that around 2,000 homes had been built on the border of her Exeter constituency which are technically in Teignbridge.

“That development is called south west Exeter, not north west Teignbridge, all the houses are not marketed as ‘come to Newton Abbot’, but ‘come and live in Alphington’,” she added.

She said she felt the five options proposed are “politically driven rather than sensible geographic options that reflect the feeling and identity of the people”.

However, Cllr James McInnes (Hatherleigh & Chagord), the outgoing Conservative leader of Devon County Council, said he did “not see how Exeter could stand alone” and that it needs the support of other Devon residents.

Exeter City Council wants to become a unitary council, responsible for all  services within its boundaries.

At present, the county council is responsible for some services in Exeter, and Devon’s other districts, including highways and education. It is this so-called two-tier system that Westminster wants to eradicate.

While Exeter’s population is only around 130,000 now, it has published proposals that would see that rise to between 300,000 to 350,000 by absorbing parts of neighbouring districts.

The government wants new unitary councils to cover populations of at least 500,000, but there is disagreement between the parties in Devon about how cast-iron this is.

In his letter from December, Jim McMahon MP,  minister for local government and English devolution, said: “there may be exceptions” to the 500,000 population guideline “to ensure new structures make sense for an area”.

Cllr Tracy Adams (Labour, Pinnhoe and Mincinglake), thought unitary status for an extended Exeter would be “in the best interests of the people we represent”.

She continued:“Our support is firmly for a unitary Exeter, as presented by Exeter City Council to the minister; that option was not on the table for us to vote for today at Devon County Council.”

But Cllr McInnes said the report still left room for the new administration, which will be in place after May’s elections, to tweak existing options or even to suggest new ones.

Other councillors raised fears about the cost of reorganisation, not only the price of enacting the changes, but what the long-term financial picture would look like for the new unitary councils.

Cllr Caroline Leaver (Liberal Democrat, Barnstaple South) thought the cost would be borne by council taxpayers.

“We’re not going to get money from the government,” she said.

“We know this process will result in less money for councils whatever the shape is, and the money spent on the reorganisation itself will come out of council coffers or [day-to-day spending] budgets and could impact service delivery.”

Cllr Leaver highlighted Somerset as an example of a council that had become unitary around six years ago, but that the new Liberal Democrat administration had “inherited some considerable financial difficulties”.

Conservative member Cllr Jeff Trail (Exmouth) urged councillors to put “politics aside”.

“The government has forced our hand, but we will only get one chance to make this work and so I say we should put the people of Devon before politics,” he said.

The majority of councillors at the meeting voted to propose five options for new unitary councils in Devon, with Labour’s five members present voting against it.