Critics have condemned the Local Government Financial Settlement and the Localism Bill – the coalition’s “revolution in local government” – put forward by Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.
They say that Mr Pickles, like his colleagues at Health and Education, wants to take power from central government and “give it back to the people”. Like his colleagues, he has done this with the mother of all shake-ups. And, like his colleagues, as he “empowers people” he burdens them with cuts.
The Local Government Association described the settlement as “the toughest in living memory” and the Institute for Public Policy Research said the Bill represented only “a cosmetic commitment to localism” as it failed to give councils more power over their revenue.
By 2015, English councils will have lost 27 per cent of their budgets and it is thought there will be 74,000 jobs lost in the first year alone. Labour’s Caroline Flint criticised him for failing to give councils any flexibility to handle expensive redundancy payments.
Under the settlement, no council will face a spending reduction of more than 8.9 per cent in 2011-12, with the department saying: “The average council will face a cut of 4.4 per cent”. But there are no average councils; some will be hit worse than others.
The campaign group Democratic Society says that 18 of the 37 worst-affected councils are Labour, while 32 of the 37 least-affected are Conservative.
Inner city areas such as Rochdale, Tower Hamlets and Knowsley will face the full 8.9 per cent cut, while less deprived areas such as Solihull (3.5 per cent) and Trafford (3.8 per cent) will do far better.
Councils will find themselves hamstrung in efforts to raise extra revenue and have to make difficult decisions about which public services to keep, and which to close.
The coalition’s plan is that voluntary community groups will fill the void. But Ed Cox, director of IPPR North, said: “The unfortunate reality is that many local councils may end up being only too happy to offer voters the chance to fund and run services they can no longer afford to support”.
