OUR BROKE COUNCILS
One in 10 out of cash by 2020 after Tories axe funding
COUNCILS are on the brink of going bust as a bombshell report today reveals the Tories have slashed their funding by 50% since coming to power.
Some are so cash-strapped they may be unable to repair potholes, collect bins or keep leisure centres open, a damning assessment by the National Audit Office warns.
And they are “raiding their rainy day funds” to cope with crippling demand on social services, the public spending watchdog adds. One in 10 will have used up reserves by 2020.
Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, said: “Local services are suffering death by a thousand cuts.”
Since 2010, 33.7% fewer households have their waste collected weekly, bus routes have been cut, and one in 10 libraries have shut. During the period from 2010/11 to 2016/17, the number of people aged 65 and over in need of care rose 14.3% while the number of children being looked after grew 10.9%. There was only a 3% reduction in social care spending – but at a cost to other areas. These included 52.8% less for planning and development, 45.6% less on housing services and 37.1% less on highways and transport.
The NAO report criticises “shortterm fixes” and warns: “These trends are not financially sustainable.”
Northamptonshire county council has banned all new expenditure apart from safeguarding vulnerable people.
One official said it had reached the brink of “financial failure”.
Lord Porter, of the Local Government Association, said: “The Government needs to urgently address this cliff-edge and the growing funding gaps facing local services.”
A Government spokesman said it was looking to devise a new funding system. “We are currently working with councils to undertake a review of their needs and resources,” he said.
THE depths of the Tory war on local communities is laid bare in a National Audit Office report counting the cost of cuts to council funding.
Halving financial support since 2010 is largely, and in some cases entirely, responsible for disasters from the social care crisis to the end of weekly bin collections.
Council tax is now going up in many areas because the Conservative government starved authorities of resources yet some right-wing Ministers still attempt to shift the blame.
Dismantling public services and undermining local democracy is a double Tory whammy. Its austerity drive is a warped ideology that is damaging the vast majority.