Tag Archives: district council

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”.

Details of funding help for councils suffering

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Copied from Local Gov Chronicle online
Minister considers further funding for worst hit
30 October, 2012 | By Ruth Keeling

MPs have appealed to ministers to extend transitional funding support for a handful of councils worse affected by the government’s cuts programme.

Ministers have promised to consider the plight of a dozen district councils facing cuts of up to 29.3% in their core funding next year as transitional funding set aside for the first two years of the spending review dries up.

Graham Jones (Lab), MP for Hyndburn and one of the areas affected, said 10 of the 12 districts were among the most deprived in England and all of the dozen faced a reduction of 22% or more “despite the chancellor’s suggestion in the Autumn statement of 2010 that no authority will suffer cuts greater than 8.8%”.

Describing the scale of the cuts as “cruel”, Mr Jones called on the government to include the transition funding in the funding baseline which will be set as local government moves from the existing funding formula to a system of partially retained business rates.

Local government minster Brandon Lewis (Con) said the grant was “only ever intended as a one-off, temporary funding stream. Councils will have realised that from the fact it was referred to as a transition grant”.

Mr Lewis also said the new funding system would “create direct links between rates collected and local authority income, thereby increasing the financial incentive for local authorities to drive economic growth”, although Mr Jones argued the councils concerned would need funding to invest in the “infrastructure, skills and apprenticeships” needed for local economic growth.

The minister said the department’s consultation on the business rate retention scheme had elicited a number of responses relating to the transition funding. “I am actively considering all the views that we have received from across the piece for the need for transitional relief funding for 2013-14” in the December settlement, he told MPs.

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LGN & LocalGov Newsletter – More cuts to come

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23 October 2012
Council leaders warn further cuts ‘certain’
James Evison

Further council cuts are ‘absolutely certain’, local authority leaders in the north of England have warned.
The news comes ahead of the end of the local government grant settlement next March, with the Government currently consulting on new financing arrangements beyond April 2013.
Local authorities are due to discover the settlement in December, but it is widely anticipated that a further two years of spending cuts will be required for council budgets.
Preston Council deputy leader, Cllr John Swindells, claimed the council have ‘probably cut as close to the bone as we can’ – and any further savings will result in services being affected ‘deeply’.
Durham CC leader, Simon Henig, echoed the statement, claiming the impact on vulnerable people and care budgets was ‘accelerating’ as a result of the budget cuts, and had to find in excess of £40m for the next few years.
North Yorkshire also has to find budget cuts of more than £48m having already implemented plans for a £69m reduction in costs at the beginning of this year.
The Local Government Association is warning local authorities will only be able to provide basic services at the end of the decade should the budget shortfall continue – and local authorities would end up £26.5bn in the red.
Last week Lewisham LBC mayor, Sir Steve Bullock, said it could ‘get a whole lot worse’ following an announcement the local authority planned £28.3m in cuts from next April.

your comments

Interesting to read the MJ article a few lines down, “Councils are failing to make ?fair? payments to care home operators…”. Cutting funding to the public sector is cutting business in the private sector too. That golden thread may take time for the Treasury to understand.
Dominic Macdonald-WALLACE, Shared Service Architecture Ltd, Added: Tuesday, 23 October 2012 01:11 PM

What is certain is that these cuts to funding are designed directly to force the destruction of jobs and services and is part of a plan to destroy the concept that there is such an entity as society. It is clear that the destruction of the public sector is priority number one. The future for ex public sector workers is workfare or McDonalds, since the Government clearly wants low paid low cost workers not what we currently have. I would suggest that the pain to come has been underestimated.
David Hambly, Added: Tuesday, 23 October 2012 11:08 AM

Waste & Recycling Services in South Holland – a 60 second survey

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Another false start survey from me via Twitter, for the same reasons as the last one – DOH!

These are my questions by the way and nothing to do with anything the district council is currently considering. Thank you in advance for taking the time to complete this 60 second survey.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WCVNXQV

Could a town council be fit for purpose AND affordable?

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Some very pertinent comments and observations on the subject of a town council for Spalding, but there is a need to always keep in mind the cost of this. Are the people of Spalding prepared to see the charge of £23, currently identified as the Spalding Special Expenses, double, just for the pleasure of saying, ‘we have a town council’?

I say double, because even though the SSE stands at £209,000 and doubling it would take it to £418,000, which seems excessive, one has to use a worse case scenario, in order not to get a very nasty shock once any town council is established. I would anticipate the need to employ at least three full time staff for a town the size of Spalding. Given that one of our towns has just employed a new parish clerk at a cost of some £27k, to which they will need to add 20% at least, to cover employment costs, it doesn’t take much to see that the numbers roll up very quickly.

I also have a suspicion that, once any town council was in place, SHDC non-Spalding members would soon start to identified items of Spalding based expenditure, that they felt should be on the town council’s books and not on South Holland District Council’s.

Don’t get me wrong, when I first joined the district council, I was amazed to find that Spalding was unparished and that the district council controlled everything via the SSE. As I was in the privileged position of being the chairman of the newly resurrected STF, I did ask for the possibility of a town council to be explored. Even back then, a figure of £40k had been spoken of previously. This on a SSE, at the time, of approximately £85k. This figure was however questioned by some members, who believed that SHDC had manufactured that number as a scare tactic, in order to kill off the process. This at a time when the council was controlled by independents – I’ll leave it at that.

Recently, I did look at this issue again and even wrote to several town councils in the area, asking if they could give me some idea of their running costs. Unsurprisingly, none of them wrote back – parish and town councils have a reputation for being less than transparent in such matters. One council I did look at more closely, in order to draw some parallels, was Sleaford. According to their master plan, Sleaford has a population of around 17000, approximately half that of Spalding – Sleaford Town Council has a staff of SIX and 17 elected members. I don’t know how much SHDC would wish to charge a town council for office space, but I do know that it would not be free.

Wimbledon is showing on the TV as I type this, so I could be tempted to claim game, set and match on this question, simply based on affordability. However, things are never that simple. One has to accept that the will of the people could well outweigh purely financial considerations, especially if the right question is asked of them.

Instead of looking for conventional solutions to this perceived democratic deficit and given the financial depression most taxpayers find themselves faced with, is there another way to achieve the desired outcome? The Localism Bill introduced a right to challenge, perhaps a group of local people should start looking at ways of using this as a cost effective way of addressing this issue, in part at least.

Cut until only the tip of the iceberg remains – surprise! it sinks

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Not sure if the first paragraph of this article is ambiguous by accident or design – I can’t figure out who, or what the ‘they’ is. I hope it means the ministers who need the reality check, because I can assure you that councils don’t need any help realising how desperate things are set to become.

Acknowledgement to Ruth Keeling of Local Government Chronicle

Ministers have been warned that popular council services could be lost forever unless they take a “realistic review” of what local government does and how it is funded.

Publishing the results of the first serious attempt to model the funding outlook for councils over the next spending review period, the LGA issued a bleak forecast of a growing multi-billion pound shortfall between the demand for services over the next decade and the resources available to fund them.

The report accepts that cuts in the next spending review could be equal to the 28% reduction in funding seen in this spending period as the government continues to tackle the budget deficit.

Using “optimistic” assumptions of councils’ other income streams as well as demand for services, the association says the funding shortfall is set to reach £16.5bn a year by 2019-20.

That annual funding gap represents a 29% shortfall across all services, but is calculated to rise to 66% if social care and waste collection are fully funded.

Similar protection for capital financing and concessionary travel fares would result in a 90% funding shortfall for other services.

Polling conducted by YouGov this month suggested two such services – libraries and leisure facilities – were the most popular with the public, with 39% and 27% of adults respectively claiming to have recently used them, compared with 11% who said elderly care services.

LGA chairman Sir Merrick Cockell (Con) said: “By the end of the decade, councils may be forced to wind down some of the most popular services unless urgent action is taken to address the crisis in adult social care funding.”

At the heart of the funding crisis is the rising cost of such care, which the LGA predicts will equal almost half of all spending by the end of the decade. It warned that its estimates were “extremely conservative”, with some councils “modelling social care demand growing at twice the rate of our assumptions”.

The document, released at the LGA conference on Tuesday, represents the organisation’s opening gambit as the Treasury and the Department for Communities and Local Government begin to plan for the next spending review period.

It will also raise images of the BBC documentary, The Street That Cut Everything, where residents attempted to do without council services entirely.

As well as calling for reform for social care funding and the repealing of some of the 1,300 statutory duties to which councils are subject, the LGA has called for the joint working being tested in the Community budget pilots and the troubled families programme to be implemented more widely.

Solace’s policy and communications director Graeme McDonald said the report painted a “bleak picture” and warned the squeeze on highways, planning and economic development would make economic growth even more difficult.

He warned that the funding gap would open up more quickly in different areas of the country. “There is a diversity of crisis, but crisis it is,” he said.

Stephen Hughes, chief executive of Birmingham City Council, said ministers had to “express a view on what is more or less important”. He added: “We have got to have a proper conversation about priorities.”

The LGA report made it clear that, with central services accounting for just £3bn a year, the challenge could not be met simply through efficiency savings.

However, local government minister Bob Neill continued to call for savings. “Councils must make savings by sharing back offices, getting more for less from the £60bn a year procurement budget, using their £10bn of reserves, tackling the £2bn of local fraud, or reducing in-house management costs,” he said.

LGA assumptions
Council tax frozen until 2014-15 and then growing by 2% per year, although the LGA notes this “may be optimistic” and council tax could rise by less

Business rate income to grow at 3.5%, in line with Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts

Central share of Business Rates to be returned to local government in 2013-14 and 2014-15 and grants to be allocated in line with total funding set in 2010 spending review

Total funding beyond 2014-15 to be reduced by £17.6bn by 2020, “broadly similar” to reductions in 2010 spending review

Reserves to be drawn down through to 2013-14 but then rebuilt in case of volatility in business rate income

Efficiency savings of 2% per year tapering to 1% per year by end of period

Councillor wanted – only professionals need apply?

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Here’s an interesting little conversation I have been having with somebody (Them) who is kind enough to follow my Twitter tweets & ramblings (can you ramble in 140 characters or less?) 

The first post refers to a leaflet produced by the City andCounty of Swansea Council, as a way of giving their taxpayers a better understanding of what a councillor does.  I think the leaflet sums the role up perfectly and, despite being produced sometime ago, I also think that nothing it says is either out of date, or irrelevant to today’s modern councillor.

The exchange of views that followed come from a council employee and offers some very valuable insights from their perspective.  The council has thinned out its management considerably over the last year or so and those that remain, at the senior level, are shared with another council inNorfolk.  Furthermore, until the recent round of local council elections changed their political colour and thinking, we were on course to link up with a second council, thereby expecting those shared managers to work across three geographically dispersed councils.

When the ‘coming together’ proposals were being discussed, I was a dissenting voice, questioning the thinning out, combined with part time nature of the shared management model.  Of even more concern to me, was the potential for generic managers.  These were seen as the way forward for some of those positions currently filled by managers with specialist knowledge of the service.  Under-pinning all of this was something called, new ways of working, a concept I have yet to fully grasp in all of its implications and one that, in my opinion, has yet to have any real meaning for many members.

Part of the new ways of working philosophy, was a belief that executive members would step-up and start taking a more hands-on approach to their portfolio holder roles.  I asked for, but never got, the provision of a structured training programme for those executive members expected to take on this ‘new way of working’, which of course brings me back to the comments made below.

I expect that there are a number of executive members in councils around the country who are relishing the opportunity to be more hands-on, I certainly am.  However, in the absence of any meaningful training, am I and others, doing any good, or are we just making life more difficult for departments already struggling with a leadership deficit?- only time will tell I suppose.

Dave Mckenna ‏@Localopolis   Final plug for my post on explaining the Six Roles of the Local Councillor to the public http://bit.ly/KGZe24

Them: Role of councillors is changing rapidly with the advent of customer services, Web interface and social media: time for reform?

Me: Yes, but that doesn’t change basic role of the councillor, helping people with ‘the system’. Some think themselves above that.

Them: With councils ‘shared management’, councillors need to assume more of an executive role and take ‘ownership ‘ of their patch.

Me: maybe so – for now. Poachers turned gamekeepers not good for the democratic process. Some relationships already too cosy.

Them: A proactive opposition is supposed to be the Democratic balance to combat political ‘cosiness’, isn’t it?

Me: Don’t agree. Having a majority trumps a robust opposition. Keeping em honest is not the same as stopping em going native

Me: members need to walk the tightrope of showing leadership, but not becoming part of the system and blind to service failings

Outsourcing – buyer beware?

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Here is an interesting item on the potential pitfalls of outsourcing.  Although it refers to the information technology systems (most people think of this as ‘the computers’) it could easily be applied to all other areas where outsourcing is being looked at as option.  I found the statement about contract negotiation particularly noteworthy, as this is where every level of government, not just small local authorities, seem to be found lacking to say the least – put crudely, they all too often seem to get stitched up by the private sector!

“Outsourcing is good and delivers economies of scale however the process is a major commitment and a path filled with risks, according to a latest briefing from Scotim Insight.

The “Costs of Outsourcing – uncovering the real risks” presents a detailed analysis of the outsourcing process and the risks it brings to local authorities.

According to the document, the risks begin at the tender stage. The supplier is well versed in contract negotiations on outsourcing while a smaller local authority is rarely going to be in that position.  So, the briefing suggests that councils seek professional advice around framing and negotiating a contract.

It also urges councils not to put all their eggs in one basket. Rather than transferring all ICT operations as a bundle to one supplier, it is best to break them into components and go to market individually.

often as a result of outsourcing, in house talen is lost which leaves the organisation unempowered against a well versed supplier.  It is equivalent to the naïve householder faced with a plumber who takes a sharp intake of breath, asks ‘Who did this?’ and then presents a large bill. In these circumstances, urgent jobs may be done only at an excessive margin, as the supplier seeks to recoup profits lost through the typically hard-fought and costly competitive tender process.

Socitm Insight suggests that identifying the potential savings to be expected from an outsourcing deal by benchmarking in advance the cost and satisfaction with the existing service against the best performing ICT services and writing the difference into the specification could be a good starting point.

‘Outsourcing should not be considered an inevitable response to austerity’ says Martin Greenwood, author of Cost of outsourcing. ‘Even smaller organisations that need to gain economies of scale, and struggle to keep up to date with technological development, should consider collaboration and sharing with other local public services as a genuine alternative. If they do take the plunge into outsourcing, they should make sure they are aware of the pitfalls and know how to avoid them.’ ”

Source: eGov monitor – A Policy Dialogue Platform
Published Wednesday, 4 May, 2011 – 10:02

Opposition is awake, but not with it!

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It’s seldom a good idea to offer your opponent any free publicity.  However when they make inaccurate, ill-informed and in one case, a statement that would be libellous if it were made about a individual and not the council, they must be challenged.

I don’t know the person in question and none of my comments are based on an opinion of him as a person.  They only relate to the glaring inaccuracies in his election leaflet and seek to challenge the vague promises he has made – these are detailed in the italics below, with my responses in bold text.

All of his typographical and grammatical errors have been retained, to ensure that I cannot be accused of changing or censoring his words.

“………. I am your Independent candidate for the Woolram Wygate Ward.” 

The name of the ward is Spalding Wygate!

“The next few years will see more housing constructed towards the end of Woolram Wygate / Monks House Lane and this has an opportunity for great things, I would work with the developer to ensure maximum community benefit.”

The new development will be taking place on land at the Monks House Lane end of Wygate Park, nowhere near Woolram Wygate.

Negotiations regarding community benefits such as a very large area of open space, a community centre, along with land and money for a new primary school, all took place back in 2001.

“In addition there are large sums of money coming into the council from housing developments and the power station. Previous sums which should have been used to transform Spalding have been used to support the general workings of the council.”

“This must stop— money claimed for Spalding should be spent on facilities for all effected by the development”.

There are NO ‘large sums’ of money coming in from housing development.  All the benefits to come from development will be within the area being developed i.e. community centre, play equipment, large public open space area.

The money to be paid by the power station once built, apart from £100,000 for Pinchbeck parish council, has been identified for specific purposes within Spalding.

It is illegal to spend a financial contribution from a developer on anything other than what was detailed in the legal agreement.

The underlined accusation is particularly disturbing.  Not only is it completely WRONG, it appears to make an unfounded accusation of fraud against the district council.

“Those of you near the railway will have noticed night works to prepare the track for freight. These have the potential to cause massive disruption to traffic and an obvious potential risk for emergency vehicle access. I would work with the train companies to ensure this disruption is kept to a minimum.”

Concerns regarding the impact on Spalding are the subject of long term and detailed discussions with both the rail operator and the county council.  We have also raised our concerns with central government, assisted by our local Conservative MP, Mr John Hayes.

“I believe that the council needs change in order to properly represent local views and not be influenced by party politics and government directives.”

Low levels of council tax and weekly refuse and recycling collections are both Conservative Party policies we are proud to promote in South Holland.

Government directives are the basis for almost everything local government does and cannot be ignored whatever the council’s political colour.

“With building land becoming so scarce the green belt between Pinchbeck and Spalding must be preserved.”

Building land is NOT scarce in South Holland and we have a more than ample supply as detailed in the South Holland Adopted Local Plan.

The land between Pinchbeck and Spalding is not designated as Green Belt, a term used to protect green areas around cities from urban sprawl.  In Lincolnshire we call it open countryside.

Parishing Spalding  “There has been talk for many years regarding this issue. I support any measure that gives people more say in their neighbourhood and believe the small initial additional cost would reap huge rewards”.

As well as the so called ‘small initial cost’ (potentially £25,000 to £50,000), setting up a town council for Spalding would require a large increase in the ANNUAL precept charged to the residents, in order to provide ongoing administration, staffing and accommodation for the town council. 

No hint is given as to what these ‘huge rewards’ will be.

“Parish councils can apply for grant and lottery funding for major projects which the council legally cannot.  In addition the new localism bill will allow parish councils to challenge for existing service, resulting in an overall cost saving and improved efficiency.”

“The potential savings would protect us all form additional council tax rises and ensure that all services were run at maximum efficiency”

The district council is NOT prohibited from applying for grant funding from appropriate sources and assists many local organisations in doing this.

Any town council wishing to take over a council service would have to increase its resources to manage that service properly.  Much of the cost would simply transfer from the district council tax to a town council tax. 

“Many of you have children at the pri­mary school, I would welcome any form of partnership working with the school board and governors to ensure it gets the help it deserves”

School board AND governors? Or does he actually mean the Board of Governors?  The primary school already controls its own budget.  Given that its other funding is provided by the County Council, what exactly is the help it deserves from the district council?

“Ensuring the Green space between Pinchbeck and Spalding”

Ensuring it’s what?  This area is already protected by the development boundaries detailed in the South Holland Local Plan.

“Work with train operators to ensure minimal disruption to the level crossing”.

The train operators do not suffer any ‘disruption to the level crossing’.  It is the traffic crossing the level crossing that is disrupted when the gates are closed to allow a train to pass.  We are actively working with the county council to seek a long term solution to the planned increase in rail traffic through Spalding.

Opposition, what opposition?

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I am very probably tempting fate with this entry and the skies will open tomorrow and a veritable avalanche of opposition campaigning will fall on my head! 

That are now only 17 days to go until polling day and there’s still no sign or sound of the opposition.  That of course, from my point of view, could be seen as a good thing. 

The flip side of my current good fortune is that the voters of Spalding Wygate don’t get a chance to hear how somebody else might think that they could do a better job of representing them than I have over the last 12 years.  They could also find themselves wondering what the point of voting was, when they have no way of comparing the candidates.  There is of course always the protest vote, or as one non-admirer put it, ‘I wouldn’t vote for you, even if the other bloke was a house brick!’ (I think he was upset about a planning application).

The other disappointment is, that if the opposition is what they call a paper candidate and has no intention of mounting any sort of election campaign, then he has given the electorate the false hope that they might be given an opportunity to make a choice.  Added to that, he’s also cost local taxpayer unneccesary expense, by requiring the district council to open a polling station in Spalding Wygate on 5th May.  Fingers crossed I’m right!!  Don’t forget to vote YES to Conservative and NO to AV on 5th May by the way!

To read more about the Spalding Wygate ward and the Conservative group go to:   http://southhollanddcconservativegroup.co.uk/3818/welcome