Councils are being “forced to play along” with the Government’s “top-down” devolution programme or “face the threat of local government reorganisation without consent”, according to Kevin Hollinrake, former Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
He told the LGA’s annual conference in Liverpool that ministers should instead be focused on the “opaque” and “broken” local government funding model.
He highlighted the increasing proportion of council budgets spent on “vital” adult social care and children’s social care and SEND services, which “protect the most vulnerable” – but said that increases in, for example, education and health care plans were not sustainable.
“We need real change based on honest and long-term thinking,” he said, and called on councillors and frontline staff to contribute to the Conservative Party’s policy renewal programme.
Mr Hollinrake said the previous government asked councils to “do too much with too little” and at times didn’t treat them “as the equal partners you are”.
“I’m not here to claim our record in government was perfect: it was not. We didn’t always give you the support and respect you deserved but we did make progress,” he told delegates – listing the New Homes Bonus, business rates localisation and lifting the borrowing cap on housing revenue accounts among the latter.
Local government is the “thread that holds communities together” and he promised to work with the sector, as partnership “is the only way forward”.