Comments on: Queen’s speech not much fun for local government either http://www.libdemvoice.org/queens-speech-not-much-fun-for-local-government-either-16873.html Our place to talk - an independent website for supporters of the Liberal Democrat party in the UK. Sat, 11 Feb 2012 08:55:56 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Matthew Huntbach http://www.libdemvoice.org/queens-speech-not-much-fun-for-local-government-either-16873.html#comment-102119 Matthew Huntbach Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:39:51 +0000 http://www.libdemvoice.org/?p=16873#comment-102119 The culture of short-term rapid cuts is leading to long-term higher costs. The constant imposition of this sort of thing onto local government in the grounds "there must be some efficiency savings they could make" leads to cuts being made to solve an immediate budget need even though a little investigation would show the longer term implications will cost more on balance. As a simple example when I was a councillor at one point the council cut back on minor road repairs. All very well, helped achieve what was that year's budget requirements. A few years down the line, and the minor road repairs having become major road repairs cost a lot more than would have been the case had they been done when they were still minor. As another issue, there is a constant battle between the NHS and local government Social Care to shift costs to each other on care of the elderly. PCTs will cheerfully make budget decisions which save them money at the expense of imposing more costs on Social care. Long term developments in society, such as the growing number of people reaching extreme old age, means the need for many of the services local government provides is growing. So, a standstill budget must inevitably means cuts in services. Few local government leaders seem willing to point his out however, preferring the cheerful "everything is going wonderfully" line in the council magazines they put out. It is not surprising, therefore, that national government can easily get away with the line "push the cuts on local government - there must be some inefficiency there", and the public just can't get why council tax goes up above inflation rate yet they see no improvement in services. The culture of short-term rapid cuts is leading to long-term higher costs. The constant imposition of this sort of thing onto local government in the grounds “there must be some efficiency savings they could make” leads to cuts being made to solve an immediate budget need even though a little investigation would show the longer term implications will cost more on balance. As a simple example when I was a councillor at one point the council cut back on minor road repairs. All very well, helped achieve what was that year’s budget requirements. A few years down the line, and the minor road repairs having become major road repairs cost a lot more than would have been the case had they been done when they were still minor. As another issue, there is a constant battle between the NHS and local government Social Care to shift costs to each other on care of the elderly. PCTs will cheerfully make budget decisions which save them money at the expense of imposing more costs on Social care.

Long term developments in society, such as the growing number of people reaching extreme old age, means the need for many of the services local government provides is growing. So, a standstill budget must inevitably means cuts in services. Few local government leaders seem willing to point his out however, preferring the cheerful “everything is going wonderfully” line in the council magazines they put out. It is not surprising, therefore, that national government can easily get away with the line “push the cuts on local government – there must be some inefficiency there”, and the public just can’t get why council tax goes up above inflation rate yet they see no improvement in services.

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