The lack of extra funding for local services in December’s provisional local government finance settlement has left councils facing a growing financial crisis.
Given the rising costs and demand pressures just in adult social care, children’s services, and housing and homelessness services, it was unthinkable that ministers did not allocate more resources for 2024/25.
In a pre-Christmas, post-settlement meeting with Michael Gove, Secretary of Secretary for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, I made clear that the lack of funding is unprecedented and that councils of all political colours and types are warning of the serious budget-setting challenges that lie ahead.
Many now face the prospect of being unable to meet their legal duty to set a balanced budget and having Section 114 reports issued, as per our recent survey (see ‘No extra funding for English councils’).
Local government is the fabric of our country, with councils providing hundreds of services that our communities rely on every single day. For many people, these services are a lifeline.
If councils cannot thrive, then our communities cannot thrive.
If social care services that councils provide cannot cope with demand, then pressure on the NHS will grow further.
If council housing teams can’t succeed, then all of our hopes for new homes will not succeed.
Meanwhile, the Secretary of State has announced that he will relax national house-building targets and give new powers to councils to reject developments that significantly alter the character of an area or impinge upon existing green belt – but will take tougher action on councils without local plans.
While we are pleased that housing targets will become advisory, we all know that planning is not a barrier to house building, with councils approving nine out of 10 planning applications.
What we need is stability on national planning policy, additional tools to incentivise the build-out of approved housing sites, five-year local housing deals for all areas, and the powers and funding to scale up and deliver an ambitious build programme of 100,000 council homes a year.