Somerset Council: Funding and Governance

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the challenges for local authority budgets, particularly for upper-tier local authorities, from rising social care costs, with the potential for productivity and other savings from a move to unitary. However, I am sure he will be aware that the Office for Local Government has published a report, with a dashboard to help councils identify how efficiently they are running their services and the general state of their finances. The conclusion of the Office for Local Government is that this was not just about money, but that where there have been failures in council finances—as, indeed, is the case in Somerset—it is down to a poor civil service and poor political leadership. It is incumbent on politicians and, indeed, council civil servants to take responsibility for that.

[Mr Fysh]

I agree with my hon. Friend. He is absolutely right that it is important that responsibility is taken and that some of these decisions—or lack of decisions, should I say—are held up for scrutiny. It is not acceptable for residents, because of the lack of money, to face the potential loss of services that are really important to them, such as the Yeovil recreation centre and the tourist information centres in Cartgate and Taunton. Such services are essential for our communities, and it is not right that those non-statutory services should now be threatened.

It is also right that we protect non-statutory services generally by making sure that the council does not go into special measures, or is subject to a section 114 notice, which is the council version of a bankruptcy. The Minister will know well how that works. These are potentially very threatening to things that are not core or statutory council operations, and we do not want to see bus services being cancelled because a council goes bust. Residents may not know or necessarily care who is in charge and what is happening, but this is a serious situation. The reality is that the current administration has caused this issue and has not taken the decisions necessary to avoid it. Nevertheless, none of us wants to see that happen and to see these services go, because they are really important.