October is budget month and no doubt there will be particular scrutiny afforded to it this time around, what with it being the new Government’s first outing.
The sense of collective amnesia by the previous incumbents, pretending to forget how we got here in the first place, is somewhat predictable. Everywhere you look however, you see the impact of 14 years of shortsighted Tory policies on austerity and the savage and sustained cutbacks on public and preventative services.
It can be seen it in the number of individuals and families who find themselves living in poverty, or who have become homeless. It can be seen in the increased number of older and vulnerable people needing the council’s support. You can also see it in the disturbing rise in the number of investigations carried out where a child is believed to be at risk of harm, which now amounts to on average over 600 every day nationally, according to recent reports.
Local councils of course are at the front line of all of this, particularly in towns and cities who tend to have many more demands on their services than those in more affluent locations, where the demand is not as great.
Reading falls into the first category of course. In children’s social care, we are facing a £4.8 million budget pressure this year due to the increased costs of caring for vulnerable children. Another £2.6 million pressure is expected in adult social care services, as a result of an additional 123 individuals entering the system between April and June this year. And in homelessness services, 135 families in Reading needed emergency accommodation in June. This compares to just 35 in April 2022 and has created another £1.1 million pressure.
It can be easy to fall into the trap of quantifying all these pressures into pounds (as I have just done). It’s important though not to lose sight of the human impact which sits behind these stark numbers. People approach local councils for help when they have nowhere else to go.
And so, we have no option but to look for savings to mitigate the additional costs brought about by these increased demands on services, which together amount to more than £13m of potential budget pressures in Reading. A reminder here that this is by no means a Reading only issue. Analysis published last week shows local authorities are having to make 3 billion in savings this financial year, but still face a funding shortfall of £5.7 billion by 26/27. Putting aside those which have already declared themselves effectively bankrupt, the number of councils who have called for additional financial support from Government now stands at 19. A reminder here also that unlike NHS trusts for example, councils must provide a balance budget by law each and every year.
When we talk about savings, what that means is running services as efficiently as possible and income from fees and charges for services. The total savings figure delivered by Reading Council between 2020/21-2023/24 was £33.5 million. This is on top of many years of belt tightening under Tory austerity. Inevitably, there comes a point comes where savings become harder to find.
This week Councillors agreed to bring forward some increases in charges which would normally not happen until the new financial year in April. We have done that so that the additional income can be used in-year to combat some of the demand-led pressures we are seeing in our services. They include a £5.10 increase a year in the collection of green waste from doorsteps and the removal of the free bulky waste collection service, pending a redesign in how it works so that it costs the Council less to operate. They are in addition to many other efficiencies being delivered by council officers across all departments.
These are not decisions we make lightly. The reality for all councils however, are that demand-led pressures on local services are not forecast to reduce anytime soon, and indeed are likely to increase in the short term at least.
Earlier this month the Local Government Association, the voice of local councils across the country, called on the Government to intervene on the national funding crisis in children’s social care. Alongside the reform of funding for Local Government and multi-year funding settlements, this is indeed very long overdue. This was followed up last week by Solace, who represent Local Authority Chief Executives and senior managers, who called the under-funding of local councils ‘the ultimate false economy’ storing up even greater problems for the future. Sadly, that’s certainly something society and local councils are now seeing come to fruition.
While the new Government won’t be able to fix all these issues at once, not least because of the £22 billion black hole in public finances it has inherited, I remain hopeful they will not prove to be as shortsighted as their predecessors.
