Leaders urge PM to reverse cuts
EAST Lancashire council leaders were among those putting their names to a letter urging new Prime Minister Boris Johnson to reverse funding cuts to local authorities.
Leader of Hyndburn council Miles Parkinson, along with his Blackburn with Darwen, Pendle and Rossendale colleagues pleaded with Mr Johnson to re-invest in councils for the long term in a bid to ensure a sustainable future.
The letter, sent by members of the Local Government Association’s Labour group, calls on Mr Johnson to immediately invest £2bn in children’s services and a further £2bn in adult social care, as well as reverse changes to the council funding formula which has seen those in deprived areas bear the brunt of cuts. And they are asking Mr Johnson to pledge to use the local government spending review to restore funding to the same levels as 2010 over the next four years.
The letter reads: “As Labour council leaders we run councils that millions of citizens rely on to deliver good quality public services – protecting vulnerable children and older people, keeping streets clean, and running much-loved parks and libraries. But since 2010 our funding from government has been cut by more than 60p in every £1 we previously received, and many council budgets have now reached breaking point. Hundreds of thousands of hard-working council staff who deliver our services have lost the equivalent of £1 of every £5 they earned before, and are now the lowest paid in the public sector.
“Adult social care is crumbling, more children are being taken into care than ever before, and there is a dire shortage of council housing. In each of the last few years the only response from the government has been to produce sticking plasters – small short-term pots of money designed merely to paper over the cracks for another year. This can’t go on.
“In your campaign to become our new Prime Minister you claimed that you would bring our country together.
“There is no better way for you to prove that this was more than empty rhetoric than by truly ending austerity in local government.
“No more sticking plasters – we need a serious long term re-investment to ensure a sustainable future for councils.”