Baroness O’Neill is the Leader of Bexley Council.
Like any other organisation or body which is funded through, or partly through, the national purse, local government would like to see more funding made available in future years.
This is after a long period of time during which, firstly, funding was reduced, and then, later, was made on what felt like an ad hoc basis, making it harder to plan for the long term.
More recently we’ve experienced the cost of the pandemic on demand and the impact of inflation on outsourced contracts. The needs of service users, including vulnerable adults and children, are more complex and costly to address while staffing costs have also risen.
Of course, this period has shown up two different types of Councils, those who just put their hands on the head, did nothing initially, and then really had to make some major and last-minute decisions – and those who took the approach we did in Bexley, to be proactive, to go through all spending line by line, and to see what we could do differently – then have a plan for the following years, all of which was focused on the only people that matter in this – the residents we service.
While across the country there were Councils rushing to close libraries or axe highways maintenance projects – and refusing to change the “we’ve always done it this way” attitudes – we have gone the opposite way.
Over this time, yes, we have seen our funding and scope for investing dramatically reduced, but we have opened new libraries, planted over 1,000 new street trees, seen our Children’s Services rated “Outstanding” by Ofsted in two consecutive inspections, successfully campaigned for better health provision locally, and found better ways of doing things which saved money while making the service better.
For example, over seven years ago, we replaced all our inefficient halogen street lights with LED bulbs. That one change has saved taxpayers every year in maintenance costs but has also reduced carbon emissions by a staggering 84 per cent. Clearly, this was a successful decision for both residents and the environment, and it’s hard to believe there are Councils, including our next-door Labour Council, that are yet to even make these changes.
But in Bexley, now what we want to see is the fair funding review actually undertaken and delivered.
This has been promised in autumn statements, spending reviews, and budgets for years, but has always been postponed and delayed. This needs to happen; we need the inherent unfairness in local government funding to be sorted out, not put off again.
Funding needs to be based on what life is like now in 2023, not what it was decades ago.
Why does this matter? In our case, our next door Labour Council receives much more funding than us, even though we have similar populations and are of similar size. This is true for all different types of Councils across the country and it needs to be sorted out, once for all.
In fact, if we received an equal level of funding to Greenwich we would be able to fund all our excellent, award winning services while at the same time cutting Council Tax.
This is the most important thing the Government could do for local government.
Like any other organisation we need to be able to plan for the long term, knowing what support we will get, and over how many years, and we need an end to having to find out what funding we will get for the following year just a few weeks before the year starts.
Let’s hope this time the review won’t just be promised, but will actually be undertaken – and decisions made to benefit us all in the long term. Fingers crossed…