Local Government Finance Settlement

Baroness Eaton Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Eaton (Con)]

My Lords, as a former leader of Bradford Council and a serving member of that authority, a former chairman of the LGA and a current LGA vice-president, I am particularly pleased to have had the privilege of hearing two excellent maiden speeches from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark. I am also pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate.

As we all know, the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is a serving councillor, a former leader of Newcastle City Council and a former chairman of the LGA so, despite our political differences, we have much in common. He is someone I respect and whose opinions I always listen to carefully. That said, I am afraid that he, along with so many of his colleagues in the Labour Party, appears to have a highly selective view of the spending reductions that the current Government have had to make. Let us be clear: if Labour had been re-elected in May 2010, there would also have been many reductions in government expenditure that would inevitably have impacted on local government. We know this because the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, said quite clearly before the general election that that was the position. Nor should we forget the letter from Liam Byrne, the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, who admitted that after 13 years of Labour Government there was “no money left”.

So local government was always going to be faced with significant financial challenges regardless of who was elected in May 2010. Councils have seen reductions in their grant from central government. However, in response, they have risen to the challenge positively by forming partnerships with other local authorities to reduce backroom costs and by securing efficiencies through new ways of working. A common theme of such initiatives is that they can often improve services for residents while simultaneously reducing costs. For example, South Holland District Council now works in partnership with neighbouring East Lindsey District Council to share services in relation to finance, IT, benefits and revenues and human resources. That has been delivered through a joint company that has secured savings of more than £1 million a year and is now attracting work from other councils. South Holland also shares a chief executive with Breckland council, which is creating significant annual savings for both councils.

In recent years, councils have also demonstrated their ability to work with other public sector partners to reduce the cost of services. Along with the noble Lords, Lord Tope and Lord Beecham, I am a great fan of community budgets. Research from Ernst & Young, following the successful pilots, shows that rolling out community budgets nationally could save up to £20 billion in five years. Meanwhile, the Troubled Families programme has helped to turn around the lives of more than 40,000 families, resulting in better outcomes for the individuals concerned and securing major savings for the taxpayer.

In the London borough of Wandsworth, more than two-thirds of troubled families that the borough has been focusing on have successfully turned their lives around within a year. Each of those families represents a potential saving to the taxpayer of £29,000 per year due to a reduction in crime and antisocial behaviour, the number of children taken into care, visits to accident and emergency and intervention from the police and courts, and increased employment.

It is also interesting to note that independent research indicates that the public perception of council services is very different from the doom and gloom rhetoric that we are used to hearing from the Labour Party. Ipsos MORI said last year that two-thirds of local residents consider that council budget reductions had not made a noticeable difference to services.

Of course, none of that is to deny that local government continues to face a challenging financial situation; clearly, like the rest of the public sector, it does. In particular, we need to ensure that as we are all living longer, adult social care is properly funded. For that reason, I particularly welcome the introduction of the better care fund, a £3.4 billion programme to ensure radical transformation in integrated health and social care. It is one of the most ambitious programmes ever across the National Health Service and local government, and will deliver improved services for some of our most vulnerable people.

No one would pretend that the past five years have not been difficult for local government. However, councillors and council staff have risen to the challenge and, through their hard work and willingness to embrace new ways of working, local government has adapted to changing circumstances.