Copied from Local Goverment Chronicle online
24 JUNE, 2016
Nick Golding

COMMENT
Local government is not alone in being today caught in a vortex of confusion. A political earthquake has taken place and the foundations on which the British state rests have been partially destroyed. There are huge repercussions for our political culture, economic wellbeing and public services.

We have entered a period of political turmoil which will not end when the Conservative party elects a new leader this autumn. The legislative agenda over the coming years will be dominated by bills charting the path to Brexit; our national leaders’ overwhelming priority will be to chart a smooth departure from Europe.

Of course we have little idea who our national leaders will be. David Cameron has resigned and damaged George Osborne’s grip on the Treasury, and the national devolution agenda is severely under threat. Our sector will now be pouring over the past statements of Boris Johnson, Theresa May, Michael Gove et al in an attempt to uncover any localising tendencies. Despite the former’s eight years as London’s mayor, one’s instant perception is that the next Conservative leader is unlikely to be a local government enthusiast. On the Labour side there is equal turmoil. Jeremy Corbyn has shown himself to be an ineffective campaigner. There is no alternative government in waiting.

Recent years have seen the collapse in the funding of local government with devastating consequences for public services but – more positively – a surge of optimism relating to the devolution of power. While Devo-Manc clearly has some momentum, much of this was based on the alliance between Mr Osborne and the city’s overwhelmingly Labour leaders. While it would take much to derail the election of a series of metro mayors across northern England next year, their future empowerment depends on a culture of cooperation and goodwill from the highest levels of government. This is by no means assured.

LGC Live: the Brexit fallout
Ministers were already having huge difficulty agreeing devolution deals for non-metropolitan areas. It is hard to believe Tory councillors or MPs wary at the imposition of elected mayors will feel anything other than emboldened by this latest round of uncertainty. And much of southern England’s local government was already in turmoil after the government opened the restructuring floodgates. Oxfordshire districts’ unitary dreams were emboldened by the prime minister’s support, which has suddenly become irrelevant. The Treasury surely has bigger fish to fry than local government reorganisation, which may be regarded as an unnecessary risk. It is entirely conceivable that relationships between the two tiers of local government have been wrecked for no gain.
Austerity will surely remain. The likely shift to the right of the Conservative leadership surely hardly heralds extra resources. Huge questions need to be answered about how, in particular, poorer areas will fund services as grant is cut and business rates are localised. Political turmoil surely makes the answering of these questions a far slower process. And, on the subject of money, what happens to European development funding? There will be little faith in Cornwall that any new government will have the same commitment to improving its infrastructure even if Britain, on balance, is a net contributor to the European Union.

We have not even discussed how gaps in the social care and NHS workforce can be plugged. After arguments about immigration won the Brexit referendum, it feels less likely that care providers will be able to welcome the East Europeans prepared to put up with relatively poor pay to support our ageing population. Similarly, local growth plans in many areas depend on the arrival of migrants.

However, with central government distracted, there are opportunities for councils. A political vacuum exists that local leaders have the potential to exploit. An absence in legislation relating to local government is surely welcome – no more Housing & Planning Acts for the next few years! But someone needs to work out how the poor are supported and the aged are cared for. Greg Clark will address a sector desperate for reassurance at next month’s Local Government Association annual conference but it is hard to believe anything other than that Westminster will be distracted. There is surely a role for visionary local leaders to step into the breach.

The 52-48% referendum vote was conclusive but this headline figure masks huge splits in society. London, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted one way; shire England the other. Major cities backed Remain; their surrounding areas backed out. The different viewpoints of different areas of the country have never been more apparent. With the UK entering a period of profound constitutional change, there has never been a more powerful time to shift power away from the centre.

At its meeting on 19th February 2016 the County Council agreed its budget for the financial year 2016/17. Reductions of £3.08 million were agreed in Highway Asset Maintenance, which includes environmental maintenance as listed below. Further savings were laid out for future years.

In March, letters were sent to all parishes and district/city/borough councils that we understood had grass cutting agreements with ourselves. These letters gave notice that County Council funding for amenity grass cutting would end on 31 March 2017.

• The County Council will end funding of amenity grass cutting from 31 March 2017.

• The County Council will still carry out highway safety grass cutting.

• The exact areas and the frequency of cutting will need to be determined following discussions with yourselves, parishes and contractors.

• The transition from the old cutting regime to the new involves many factors and we have a variety of procurement arrangements. We will be engaging with partners and discussions have already commenced with some of your colleagues.

• Grass Verges – Amenity cuts cease 31 March 2017.

• Highway Safety cuts reduce from 3 in 2015/2016 to 2 in 201620/17 and likely to go down to 1 in 2017/2018 (subject to Members’ ratification)

• Weedspraying – Reduces to 1 for 2016/2017 season, but we will honour agreements where notice is required. • Gully Emptying – One annual clean with emergency response in 2016/2017; targeted clean with emergency response in 2017/2018.

• Rights of Way – Parish Paths Agreement ended this year and grass cutting removed from 2017/2018.

• A Communications Plan will be developed by our corporate communications team to inform the more significant changes in 2017/2018

Budget pressures lead to reduction in roadside grass cutting
In light of a multi-million pound reduction in its budget, the council will reduce grass cutting on roadside areas around the county.

The council currently performs two types of grass cutting. Amenity grass cutting is generally carried out in built-up areas, approaches to major junctions and on the central islands of roundabouts, with seven cuts between March and October. Additional cuts are sometimes carried out by district councils and parish councils who fund these at their own expense. Funding for this service will stop from 31 March 2017, saving £600,000 per year.

The council also carries out flail grass cutting, generally in rural areas, to a width of one metre either side of the carriageway and footway. At each junction along the carriageway, the council may cut an increased area to improve visibility. This policy is also adopted on various bends to improve the forward visibility for vehicles. The flail cutting programme was carried out three times a year during the summer months, but has reduced to two times in the current year, saving a further £250,000 annually.

Cllr Richard Davies, Executive Member for Highways, said: “The council’s budget has been cut by more than £100m over the last few years, and we need to save a further £41m this year. We simply can’t afford to do everything we’ve done in the past.

“That has meant looking at what should take priority. We’ve decided to protect vital areas like the pothole budget, but that has meant other things have had to take a hit.

“As a result, although we will be funding amenity grass cutting this year, the service will stop from 1 April 2017. However, we will honour existing contractual notice arrangements, so some may run a year longer.”

ENDS
16 June
General contact

Lincolnshire County Council
County Offices
Newland
Lincoln
LN1 1YL
Ethan Thorpe
ethan.thorpe@lincolnshire.gov.uk
01522 553930

Copied from Local Government Chronicle online  4 APRIL, 2016

It is not surprising that Iain Duncan Smith’s departure precipitated some fast back-tracking by George Osborne on key aspects of his Budget.

To go from saying that “cutting £4.4bn from the welfare budget, including personal independence payments, is absolutely essential for meeting our financial obligations” to “we’re not proceeding with these measures and we’re not proposing any alternative savings” in the space of 48 hours is breath-taking.
There is, however, another budget issue which has got slightly lost in the IDS commotion. Last October, Mr Osborne announced the move to full business rates retention to the Conservative Party Conference. More detail was provided in the November autumn statement.
Given the government’s track record in these matters since 2010, it is little wonder that serious questions were being asked as soon as Mr Osborne announced the extension of the small business rate relief thresholds and the intention to change the inflation index from the retail to the consumer prices index. The Treasury said that local government would be compensated and the increase to the threshold would be at “full exchequer cost”.

Suspicious? Sceptical? You bet! The antennae twitched vigorously when the Treasury seemed unable or unwilling to answer questions about how this compensation would be determined, distributed and delivered.

So, at the first opportunity, on the Monday following the Budget and Duncan Smith’s resignation, I asked the communities secretary, Greg Clark, how this compensation mechanism was to work.

I received an emollient response; it would be a section 31 grant for business rates reduction. Mr Clark added: “When it comes to the full retention of business rates by 2020, the forecast is that there is £26bn of revenue, and councils retain £13bn. Therefore, there are transfers that need to be made in, which will be taken into account by the end of the process.”
Subsequently in the Budget debate I intervened on Mr Clark to confirm that that grant will not come from any other part of local authorities’ budgets, and if it is not, to point out precisely where in the Red Book it says how that is funded.

Mr. Clark responded said it was on page 84, line 15 but later in the debate I pointed out that this section refers to the cost to the government of the small business rates relief changes; it does not show how local authorities will be compensated for that loss by a section 31 grant.

“Will someone please show me where in the Red Book the section 31 grant is described as compensating local authorities?” I asked.

Following the debate Mr Clark has written to me and assured me that councils will be fully recompensed for the extra small business relief up to 2020 and that this will be dealt with in the supplementary estimates.
More worryingly, on the change between the RPI and the CPI, which comes into force in 2020 after grant has ended, what mechanism can the government find to compensate authorities for that change? Given that it will vary year on year, how can changing the devolved powers to local authorities be done on a yearly basis? Perhaps this is one change where councils will be left out of pocket.
And, what does the four-year settlement offered to councils for the rest of the Parliament now actually mean? Where is that left by the £3.5bn of efficiency savings the chancellor announced in his Budget and the £4.4bn of extra savings that presumably have to be found now that the PIP cuts are not being carried through? That’s an extra £7.9bn to be found. I have asked for a categorical assurance from ministers that this will not affect the four-year settlement offered to local councils.
And what about the already ravaged ring-fenced public health grant, which has seen a one-off cut of £200m this year? With a further £600m more in real-terms cuts by 2020 already planned, will the grant face any further cuts to help fill the £7.9bn black hole? No answer so far.

The harsh reality is that Mr Osborne’s budget has already unravelled and local government spending, yet again, could bear the brunt of further cuts.

We should all be shouting out loud now to strengthen the hand of the communities secretary in resisting any attempts to make local services for the elderly and disabled a substitute cut for those welfare cuts now rightly abandoned.

Clive Betts (Lab), chair, communities and local government committee