Collecting waste and Social Care is all Councils will be able to do by 2020

As someone who is passionate about local government and its importance in providing services and transforming lives, I was brought up short by the Local Government Association report on future funding this week.   By 2020 Councils in England will have enough money to give basic social care support and to collect the rubbish, and that is it.  

Councils were cut earlier and harder than the rest of the public sector by Government, and if the same pattern of cuts is replicated in the next Spending Review, and demand for services continue, then there will be a £16.5bn spending gap by 2020, or a 29% shortfall between revenue and spending pressures.  The report has modelled the funding available for services within these constraints.  If waste and social care are fully funded, other services face cuts of 66%, and that if capital financing and concessionary fares are also fully funded, then the cash cut for remaining services rises to over 90%

Whilst local government remains the most efficient part of the public sector, without money and massive reform, there is no solution.    

Obviously there are some big “Ifs”.  If this Government continues on its deficit reduction policies with no Plan B, then not only is the whole public sector screwed, but so is the economy as a whole – over 100,000 local government workers in England have lost their jobs since May 2010, most now spending less , paying less tax and claiming benefits, not to mention the impact on the thousands of businesses dependent on Council contracts. 

But even if Osborne changes tack, and the future for Council finance is in crises, and radical reform of services is inevitable – we will not succeed in the challenge by efficiencies alone .  There has to be a solution for social care funding, and we have to think about what services we want to pay and what we want to receive in return.