A tipping point on council cuts

Minister is backing town halls

PERHAPS A tipping point has been reached over funding of town halls after Robert Jenrick – the Cabinet minister presiding over local government – confirmed that he intends to lobby the Prime Minister and Chancellor “very strongly” to spare councils further budget cuts.

Recognition of the expense incurred by Yorkshire’s local authorities in responding to the Covid-19 crisis, and its impact on communities, it also points to an acceptance, on the Minister’s part, that some councils do, in fact, find themselves on the brink of bankruptcy after a decade of austerity and now this pandemic.

It remains to be seen whether Mr Jenrick’s warnings are taken seriously when the scale of the challenge facing Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, becomes even more serious ahead of the forthcoming Budget and Comprehensive Spending Review.

Yet, rather than councils being left lurching from one crisis to another, from one year to the next one, and from one Minister to the next politician passing through the Cabinet revolving door, what Mr Jenrick – and his colleagues – should be doing is undertaking a root and branch of review of local government.

This needs to take account of Whitehall’s expectations of town halls, an exercise even more necessary in this era of devolution as the network of councils evolves, and the future funding of social care, an issue left to fester by successive governments including Boris Johnson’s administration.

On the day that the County Council Network reports that rural areas are most vulnerable to the economic impact of Covid-19, demands on local government will only intensify – all the more reason to take a longerterm view when it comes to funding settlements rather than an ad hoc approach that leaves services, and staff, in a perpetual state of uncertainty.