Local Government Funding
Debate between Steve Double and Colleen Fletcher(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) on securing this really important debate on local government funding.
It is clear that Government cuts to local authorities have impacted on the authorities’ ability to deliver services. That is certainly true in Coventry, where Government cuts are hollowing out our local communities. Since 2010, Coventry City Council has lost £94 million from its budget and by 2020 its Government grant will have been cut by a massive 65%. As a result, the council is being forced to consider proposals that will further reduce its ability to deliver the services that my constituents deserve and depend upon.
Coventry City Council has rightly prioritised the needs of vulnerable people, and despite the pressure on its budgets the council has found more than £10 million to invest in children’s services, to help to turn around a service that is overwhelmed by children who need support from the social care system.
Like many other local authorities, however, Coventry City Council is also seeing a significant rise in the number of elderly residents requiring support from adult social care. While I recognise that the Government have permitted local authorities to add a further 2% to council tax as part of the adult social care precept, that simply does not go far enough. Social care budgets are facing a perfect storm of rising demand and rising cost, but funding is not increasing far enough to cover that.
Colleen Fletcher
No, I will not. I am going to finish in a bit, as I only have a minute. In Coventry this year, adult social care budgets are predicted to have been overspent by £6.7 million, but the social care precept will add only £2 million. That leaves a massive gap that the council will need to cover by reducing spending elsewhere, and it is to that expenditure that I now turn.
Many have spoken about the “graphs of doom” that show local authorities ceasing to be able to provide anything other than the most basic of statutory services and social care. Those predictions are becoming a reality in Coventry. The council has made a frank assessment that in future it will be unable to fund, among other things, libraries, community centres, voluntary agencies and road repairs to the same level that it has in the past. That means that the colour and lifeblood of our communities will begin to dwindle as support that they once received from the council is no longer there. If the Government want to help people escape poverty, tackle poor levels of productivity and deal with the long-term problems associated with worklessness, they must provide local government with the resources it needs to let our communities grow and flourish.