Cash warning over funding for services
City leaders have welcomed calls for fairer Government funding.
The move has been made by the Local Government Association (LGA) as part of its Autumn Budget Submission, which is highlighting the pressures authorities are under.
The LGA is warning that the money local government has to provide day-to-day services is running out fast.
For every £1 of council tax collected by councils in 2019/20, the LGA forecasts 56p could be spent on caring for the elderly, vulnerable adults and children.
This is up from 41p in 2010/11.
In Sunderland, more than £295million has been taken out of its budgets in the last eight years because of the Government’s austerity programme. Council Tax raises only 14p for every £1 of city spending.
This year’s Council Tax increased by 4.9 % in Sunderland with 3% raising an extra £4.2million to help meet the cost of increasing demand for adult social care.
Councillor Mel Speding, the council’s cabinet secretary, said: “Councils across the country are seeing increasing pressures on all their services and how they are delivered.
“Government assistance has not been forthcoming and Government has continued to reduce the core funding that councils receive.”
The chairman of the LGA, Councillor Claire Kober said: “Within two years, more than half of the council tax everyone pays could have to be spent on adult social care and children’s services.
“Councils will be asking people to pay similar levels of council tax while, at the same time, warning communities that the quality and quantity of services they enjoy could drop.”
Sunderland has already agreed the majority of its cuts for 2018/19.
Further savings will have to be found in the next two years. The Government will announce its funding for local government for next year in December.
A provisional Sunderland Council Tax figure for the next financial year is due to be announced in February 2018, with the council setting and finalising its next budget in March.