A positive finance settlement
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all first readers a belated happy new year, and I hope that you had an enjoyable and restful festive break.
I would like to take this opportunity to wish all first readers a belated happy new year, and I hope that you had an enjoyable and restful festive break.
Everyone in local government knows people are hungry for more power over their own lives and more control over the places they live.
Days before Christmas, the Government published its provisional local government finance settlement, setting out the details about local government spending in the coming financial year.
While the local government finance settlement might pull some of our councils back from the brink, we shouldn’t kid ourselves that it puts us on a sustainable footing to meet the needs of our communities or our environment.
This is my last first column of 2022, and it is fair to say that in terms of both domestic and international events it has been an extremely busy and turbulent year.
Just 55 days after the disastrous mini-budget, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivered his Autumn Statement, which confirmed that working people will pay the price of Tory incompetence.
The UK Government has announced a multimillion-pound plan that would stop people from voting in elections unless they can show photo identification (ID).
The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement has attempted to mitigate the disastrous Liz Truss Budget, adding £8.5 billion to health, social care and schools’ budgets in 2024/25, but leaving other departments to absorb the impact of higher inflation.
Just weeks after taking power, Prime Minister Liz Truss and former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng made a remarkable impact – their disastrous kamikaze mini-Budget crashed the economy, causing market panic, and forcing the Bank of England to intervene.
Frontline services, already cut to the bone, and regeneration projects are under the greatest threat, with inflationary pressures predicted to cost councils more than £1 billion next year at least.