Tag Archives: deficit

Another government minister playing mind games with local government

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All junior pupils to be enrolled in a libraryEvery junior school student in the country will be enrolled in a local library, Nicky Morgan will pledge today. The Education Secretary said it is a “national mission” to improve literacy levels of young children. Officials in the education department hope that the drive could stop closures of libraries across the country. Local authorities often close libraries and justify their decision by saying that there are not enough members to warrant continued funding.

So, Nicky Morgan is going to make it a “national mission” is she?  Is she also going to make it a nationally funded mission, so that councils aren’t forced to cut other services just to satisfy yet another piece of government double speak?  I can answer that question, without even bothering to ask the minister.  There’ll be no financial support forthcoming, just more weasel words from ministers, when councils cry foul.

Porter: I’m the man to lead LGA through ‘uncharted’ territory

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Copied from the Local Government Chronicle online 

27 May, 2015 | By David Paine
The Local Government Association is heading into uncharted territory and faces the biggest threat to its existence over this parliament, according to the frontrunner to become the body’s new chair.
Writing for LGC, LGA Conservative group leader Gary Porter noted it was the first time in the LGA’s history that it will have worked with a Conservative majority government. He said this, combined with a Conservative led LGA presented “both the biggest opportunity and the biggest threat to the sector being effectively represented by one lobbying organisation”.
He said: “Can we put up a senior team that will be able to work well with central government, and yet still be able to publicly articulate the case on behalf of our members when our sector’s interests cannot be advanced by either the formal or informal route?   
 “That’s why the Conservative group’s choice of chairman is more crucial than it has been at any time and it is for this reason that I am putting my name forward.”
The Conservatives regained control of the LGA in this month’s local elections meaning Labour’s David Sparks is set to be replaced as the LGA’s chair.
LGC reported last week that Cllr Porter looked set to be unchallenged for the role after potential rivals stepped aside to challenge for the group leadership role.
Cllr Porter, who is leader of South Holland DC, said he had a track record of working across the political divide and as chair would want to work closely with government to ensure services are redesigned in the best way to meet the financial challenge facing local authorities.
He said: “If the LGA is looking for someone who cares passionately about local government and about the role the association plays in protecting and promoting it, for someone who can work across political and sectorial boundaries, and for someone who will champion the work that we all do, then it is looking for me.”
Nominations for chair close on 9 June and the new post will be announced by the end of the month.     

Eric Pickles: a response

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Copied from Local Government Chronicle online
13 December, 2012 | By Dan Drillsma-Milgrom

Those that listened to the Department for Communities & Local Government’s ministerial team give evidence to its equivalent select committee on Wednesday will have heard Eric Pickles make the bizarre claim that quoting from LGC is like “quoting from a Labour party press release”.

The thoughtlessness of this comment can be demonstrated by simply pointing out that just a month ago, Mr Pickles’ own department was happy to quote LGC’s research into council chief executives’ salary levels in a press release about ending chiefs’ “golden goodbyes”. We don’t necessarily agree with the policy but were happy for Mr Pickles’ department to quote from our research, just as we were happy for David Cameron to do so last year.

Still, mud can stick. So for the record, let me restate Local Government Chronicle’s editorial position.

LGC has absolutely no affiliation to or bias towards any political party. Our editorial position is that we act as a friend to the sector – albeit a critical one where necessary. Our objective is to report on policy issues that affect all councils and, where we can, to put forward the case for local government to be part of the solution to some of the social and economic issues that the country faces. To do this, our reporters speak regularly with senior council officers, civil servants and local and national politicians of all parties.

Mr Pickles’ comment on Wednesday came in response to a question about DCLG’s permanent secretary Sir Bob Kerslake being branded a ‘doom denier’ for dismissing the LGA’s predictions of a looming financial crisis. The actual “doom denier” label was coined by the organisation’s Liberal Democrat group while the original ‘graph of doom’ was created by Conservative-run Barnet LBC. It was the LGA’s Conservative chairman Sir Merrick Cockell who said that while “denying” the growing funding gap that local government is facing “may be convenient for some”, it is “not accurate to suggest the view is overly pessimistic”. It is hard to see how reporting on this issue is representing the Labour party’s viewpoint.

To be honest, with Labour having not released much policy on local government, LGC has not devoted an awful lot of coverage to the party recently. One exception was when we exclusively revealed Labour councillors’ anger at their party’s leadership for forcing peers to vote against plans to give councils greater flexibility to deal with council tax benefit reforms – again, hardly the stuff of central office press releases.

LGC has, however, been critical of the lack of support Mr Pickles and his department have shown for local government. Our lead story and leader article in this week’s issue give an example of why this is.

But at the select committee hearing, Mr Pickles himself gave an interesting insight into why there’s such anger within the sector towards him. The communities secretary was asked by MPs whether Greg Clark’s decentralisation report, published last week, had implicitly criticised his department by saying “it should come to a more settled but ambitious view of the role of local government and communities and neighbourhoods”. He replied that he had inherited a department that was “the voice of local government within government” and that had changed to being “the voice of the council tax payer, of the citizen inside local government services”.

It is quite right for Mr Pickles to act as the voice of the council tax payer – Mr Pickles’ predecessors would surely claim to have done likewise – but many officers and local politicians now feel that councils do not have an advocate within Whitehall. Mr Pickles’ comment seems to confirm that this is the case. Or at the very least, if there is one, it’s not him.

Incidentally, it’s worth pointing out that reports in the press this week that Ed Miliband and Ed Balls are planning to oppose George Osborne’s plans to raise benefits and tax credits at a below-inflation 1% have important implications for local government.

If spending on the NHS, schools and overseas aid is to be protected whilst overall spending is reduced, then a decision to also protect welfare expenditure implies extra cuts for other spending departments, local government included.

Councils will be unlikely to sit higher up the pecking order under a Labour administration.

Peers champion ‘graph of doom’ prediction in Lords debate

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Copied from Local Government Chronicle
3 December, 2012 | By Keith Cooper

The government’s effort to discredit local government predictions of a looming social care funding crisis have failed to convince Labour and Liberal Democrat members of the House of Lords.

Peers debating the future of social care in the upper chamber this week pointed repeatedly to the now-famous “Barnet Graph of Doom” which shows that council budgets could soon be eaten up entirely by an inexorable increase in adult social care.

Senior civil servants dispatched to the Communities and Local Government had this month dismissed this prediction as overly ‘apocalyptic’ and too ‘pessimistic’.

But Baroness Barker (Lib Dem) told peers it was “understandable that people talk in apocalyptic terms about social care”.

“The Barnet graph of doom says it all. I have to say that the LGA laid it on by doing exactly what I would have done in the circumstances, which is to pick the very worst case.”

Lord Lipsey (Lab) also pointed to the north London borough’s graphic portrayal of the alleged impending social care crisis. “[The Barnet Graph of Doom] shows what the council expects to spend on services and, on another line, what it expects to be allowed to spend in total.

“By 2030, spending on social services alone, the bulk of that on old people, exceeds the total budget,” he added. “Either no bins will be emptied in Barnet…there will be no libraries or parks- no town hall even- or there will be further big cuts for old people.”

Lord Warner (Lab), a member of the Dilnot commission, agreed with Lord Lipsey’s characterisation of social care funding. “This will mean that big cities in particular lose their civic services around arts, leisure, and other things which make for a civilised society as their authorities concentrate on social care and child protection.”

Earle Howe (Con), parlimentary under-secretary of state Department of Health, challenged the “story of cuts” portrayed by his fellow peers.

“We remain firmly of the view that the funding we have provided is enough to allow authorities to maintain access to services and to provide good-quality care. Independent research from the King’s Fund corroborates this.”

“This is not the story of cuts as some critics have made out, and there is only limited evidence of the impact on services or on users.”

Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab) and vice president of Carers UK, who opened the debat sais she found it hard to recognise “the picture of local services” painted by Lord Howe.

Parish councils ‘confused’ by government stance on benefit deals

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Copied from Local Government Chronicle
4 December, 2012 | By Ruth Keeling

District and parish councils have been left disappointed by the government’s decision to make every district negotiate council tax benefit deals with their parishes.

The move goes against the majority of submissions to a government consultation on the funding formula. Ninety-four per cent of respondents backed the creation of an unadjusted tax base which would avoid the need for detailed calculations for every town and parish authority.

Sandra Cowley, head of finance at Stroud DC and council tax lead for the Society of District Council Treasurers, described the decision as “astounding”; Michael Chater OBE, chairman of the National Association of Local Councils, expressed “strong disappointment”.

The government’s consultation response said it had returned to its original proposal because of concerns about the financial burden on districts should they be left covering parish shares of any mismatch between council tax benefit funding and provision.

The government’s apparent disregard for parish councils’ viewpoint comes after communities secretary Eric Pickles described ast month described them as “localism’s magic wand”.

Mr Chater said billing authorities had “a mixed track record of passing down finance to grassroots councils”. The decision to revert to the government’s original proposal to leave the decision to negotiation between billing and local councils would “put a strain on the delivery of localism and potentially weaken the trust local councils have in government”.

“The real risk for some local councils, is that the billing authority pays over no grant and the council tax base is reduced so resulting in an increase in the council tax rate charged for the local council without there being any change in the basic precept,” he added.

Ms Cowley said colleagues were “confused” by the government’s approach.

“I find it astounding after they have gone to all the trouble of running the consultation,” she said. Responses to the government’s consultation showed that 94% thought the unadjusted tax base was the right approach, including 77% of district councils who expressed concern about the complexities of calculating grant shares for a large number of parishes. “With the majority saying this is an issue they have chosen to go with the minority,” Ms Cowley added.

One district treasurer who did not want to be named said: “This is bad news our town and parish councils set their precepts mainly in December and they thought this issue had been resolved. How we liaise with more than 100 parishes at this time of year will be a new challenge.”

The Department for Communities & Local Government’s consultation response said: “16 respondents disagreed with the proposals with billing authorities making up the majority of those disagreeing. The general view was that the proposals would unfairly protect parish councils from the impact of localising council tax support and would put a financial pressure on the billing authority. Some billing authorities suggested this potential financial pressure would be higher where the parish has a precept larger than that of the district council.”

The response also said that taking action on the “basis of an assumption that billing authorities will not pass down funding…is contrary to the spirit of localism” and, as a result, “the government considers that greater weight should be given to the potential for the proposal set out in the council tax base consultation to increase the financial burden on billing authorities”.

More weasel words on Overseas Aid budget farce

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How much longer do British taxpayers have to suffer cuts whilst their hard earned cash continues to flow into countries that are more than able to pay to look after their own citizens, but just don’t want to? They must be laughing their heads off every time they cash our cheque.

And the sternest statement our MPs can make on this scandal? ‘Tory MPs want Britain to use the meeting to call for bigger contributions from other countries’. WRONG! The British people want the British Government to stop lording it around on the world stage and cut these contributions without further delay.

British aid supports schemes in Iran and China
By Colin Freeman Sunday Telegraph 7 Oct 2012

FRESH concerns over Britain’s spending on foreign aid were raised last night as it was disclosed that the country is helping support projects in Iran and China. The Department for International Development (DfID) is a key supporter of the World Bank, set up to help develop poorer countries.
The bank, established after the Second World War, is funded by developed countries to provide capital to lend on interest-free or easy terms to poorer countries, and to use as collateral to raise further funds on the international money markets.
It also provides grants from cash given by donor countries, of which Britain is fifth largest, behind America, Japan, Germany and France. However, the level of aid given to the World Bank raised new worries last night over how aid funds are spent, and there is also concern over some of the bank’s loan schemes.
Inquiries by The Telegraph found a number of projects that bore only limited relevance to Britain’s development goals. They include:

• £50 million in loans for a road safety campaign to improve Iran’s appalling road accident rate. The country’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, holds a PhD in traffic management.

• A £30 million loan towards the cost of a Confucius “cultural heritage protection” project in China.

• £122,000 for a “radio reality format” project to encourage women in central India to use water more efficiently.

Last year DfID contributed £953.4 million to the bank. In stark contrast, China gave only £98 million in 2010, while Russia gave just £70 million. Additionally, Britain is still giving aid to “middle income” countries through its contributions, despite the Government’s recent pledge to restrict handouts to only the neediest nations.
In a major review of aid 18 months ago, ministers promised a “tighter focus” on 27 of the poorest nations. However, among those in receipt of World Bank grants are Moldova, Cambodia and Kosovo, which were on a list of 16 countries for which DfID stopped direct funding.
The three receive grants totalling £56 million from the World Bank’s International Development Association, a fund to which Britain paid £2.64 billion – 12 per cent of the total – in the last round of contributions in 2010. On that basis, roughly £7.6 million of the grants to Moldova, Cambodia and Kosovo came from the British taxpayer.
The money is part of the 0.7 per cent of national income that Britain spends on overseas aid, which critics say must either be reduced or more carefully monitored. The lack of control that Britain has over how its foreign aid budget is spent by international bodies was highlighted by The Telegraph last week, when it was revealed that British aid cash channelled through the European Union is being spent on projects such as tourism parks in Iceland and energy-efficient holiday complexes in Morocco.
This week, the World Bank will hold its annual meeting in Tokyo, when talks will start on the next round of handouts, due to be finalised next year. Tory MPs want Britain to use the meeting to call for bigger contributions from emerging economies, especially if they want a greater say in the bank’s affairs.
“As a layman, I would have imagined that the voting rights should follow the money,” said Philip Davies, the MP for Shipley. “By anybody’s standards, we appear to be overpaying relative to other countries, and it is more than we can afford in this time of austerity.”
A DfID spokesman said the Government had not made any decisions about its future contribution to the World Bank’s aid programmes. But he added: “We are committed to a faster programme towards poverty reduction worldwide – this includes pushing other countries to increase their contributions.”