Category Archives: Local Government

More than half of UK councils are set to go bankrupt in next Parliament

Councils are set to increase their tax bill for residents, but that won’t stop them going bankrupt.

Remember that crisis in local council funding This Site mentioned the other day?

Well, more than half of the UK’s councils have warned that they’ll run out of money during the next Parliament if central government doesn’t change its funding regime – whichever party/s form it:

The Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) has found that 51% of senior officials across the UK think their councils will go bankrupt in the next five years unless major reform is introduced.

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The LGIU report also suggested that even those who stay in the black will face some bumps in the road.

Just 4% of nationwide councils feel confident in the current local government finance system – and a mere 6% are happy with Downing Street’s current approach to it.

Nine in 10 councils are looking at hiking fees on parking and environmental waste or raising council tax to cope with looming bankruptcy, while one in 10 will cut SEND services – Special Educational Needs and Disability – as well as children’s care services.

A fifth want to sell their publicly-owned assets, while more than half are relying on their financial reserves to stay afloat.

And – oops! Still no ideas from either the Tories or the other Tories Labour. Business as usual from those two, then.

Source: UK Councils Issue Bleak Bankruptcy Warning For The Next Government | HuffPost UK Politics


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Violent COUNCILLORS try to stifle ‘Free Palestine’ calls in Chorley

Remember when these people flooded into London last October to demonstrate against Israel’s genocide in Gaza? If they were violent, they could have turned our capital city into a replica of that ruined Palestinian enclave. But they didn’t because they were peaceful. It is the politicians who denigrate them that are violent.

Violence is always the resort of the ruling class.

In the clip below – taken at a council meeting in Chorley, we can see and hear members of the public calling for action to support the people of Gaza, and Palestine in general. In response, one councillor shouts, “This is Chorley, not Gaza!” and tries to physically throw the (female) main speaker out of the room.

From there, the meeting descends into chaos as those present react to what has happened.

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This Writer can only agree with the observation of Another Angry Voice:

The will of the people is that the UK should do everything it can to end the Gaza genocide – but the will of the political class is that our money should be used to ensure it continues to its conclusion.

Those of us who do not accept that are also participants in the conflict, right here in the UK.

WE ARE ALL IN GAZA NOW.


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Four ways Labour could fix the crisis in local council finances – but will it?

Council funding: council tax bills are only a minor element in the funding of local authorities – most of the cash comes from central government’s Aggregate External Finance (AEF) grant. It is the composition of this grant that determines whether councils can cope – or will go bankrupt.

LabourList used to be a handy source of information about the UK’s largest political party – but that was a long time ago, before the infighting over Jeremy Corbyn, and Keir Starmer’s purge of the Left.

Still, it does produce the occasional item of interest, like a recent piece about ways a Labour government might solve the Tory-caused crisis in local council funding.

Six English councils have announced effective bankruptcy since 2020, and there is said to be a £4 billion funding gap across the board.

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“£4 billion? That’s nothing,” I hear you say. “Tories give sums like that to their buddies in return for hot air.” True. But LabourList has suggested four possible ways of improving council funding.

The big question is: which will Keir Starmer rubber-stamp? Or will he ignore the problem, like the Tory he is?

Here are the possibilities:

Proposal 1: Rework the local government needs assessment [the Fair Funding Review].

The government launched a ‘fair funding review’ in 2016, but this has not progressed since a consultation in 2018. Not having this in place in England makes it a significant outlier in the international community, gradually untethering the distribution of local government finance from local need and resource.

The Fair Funding Review should be reopened and delivered, paving the way for yearly needs assessments and longer-term funding settlements.

Proposal 2: Establish a systematic form of territorial equalisation between local authorities.

England is an outlier in not having a systematic form of territorial equalisation, that ensures solidarity and parity in needs-based revenue between location.

Germany, Italy, and Japan all utilise forms of vertical (central to local) and horizontal (between location) redistributions of major income streams (including elements of personal, company, consumption, and asset taxes) that ensure that all locations have access to sufficient resources and the ability to deliver minimum service standards.

Importantly, the funding provided through the equalisation systems in Germany, Japan and Italy is not ringfenced. This results in individual local authorities having significant discretion over the income they receive.

Proposal 3: Establish a standing commission, akin to the ‘English Devolution Council’ proposed by the Institute for Government.

Discussions between councils and the government about local financial pressures, distribution of funds, or the impact of national policies are haphazard and often adversarial. To strengthen this relationship, we propose a one-stop, statutory body to provide discussion forum for local authority representatives and the government.

Proposal 4: Develop a long-term programme exploring assigning national tax revenues to local authorities.

A fixed percentage of the revenue from one or more national taxes could be assigned to local government as a whole. Taxes that could be considered in this regard include income tax, VAT, employers’ NI, corporation tax, vehicle excise duty, and stamp duty.

The revenue could then be distributed according to the needs assessment developed in Proposal 1. This would counter the problem faced by many proposals for fiscal devolution: that richer areas raise more money, increasing inequality.

All of these ideas are based on the situation in Germany, Italy and Japan, which suggests that, perhaps, only minimal research has been done.

Still, a little is better than none at all.

But no amount of research can do any good if a government is not interested in implementing it.

And Keir Starmer is haemorrhaging votes because of his blind loyalty to Israel in that country’s brutal slaughter of innocent citizens of Gaza.

Which of the four ideas above will he implement? Well, he may not have the chance to consider any of them.

Source: Four ways Labour could fix the crisis in local council finances – LabourList


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More than 40 Tory MPs demand extra funding for the councils they’ve been starving

Rubbish: will domestic refuse collections be cut back – again – if Rishi Sunak and his government refuse a plea from more than 40 Tory MPs for the restoration of funding to local councils?

Tory MPs who gleefully nodded through cuts totalling three-eighths of local council funding are now demanding extra cash so the same councils can fend off bankruptcy. Is it because this is an election year and they are afraid they’ll lose their Parliamentary seats?

More than 40 of them have joined dozens of others in demanding extra funding to avoid big cuts in council services.

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Here’s the BBC:

The group of 46 MPs, which is made up of 44 Conservatives as well as Labour’s Daniel Zeichner and Liberal Democrat Sarah Dyke, includes former ministers Priti Patel, Robert Jenrick, Greg Clark and Damian Green.

The letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove was co-ordinated by the County Councils Network and the County All-Party Parliamentary Group.

It urged the government to provide extra funding for local authorities ahead of a vote in the Commons next month “to ensure that the councils in our areas can continue to provide the services that our residents depend upon”.

There has been growing concern across the local government sector about council funding, with particular pressure on the cost of providing care for vulnerable adults and children, as well as housing services.

The government said it had announced a £64bn funding package for councils.

In December, the government announced the amount of funding it plans to make available to councils from April, and said it represented an average increase of 6.5% compared to the year before.

It is interesting that the Tory government said it was providing £64 billion in funding, when apparently the amount of cash it made available for councils fell from £41bn to just £26bn between 2010 and 2020.

Perhaps some of the extra cash is so-called ‘Levelling-Up’ money?

If so, Labour’s Luton North MP Sarah Owen has something to say about the way that money has been allocated:

Most of the response to the Tories’ call for cash has been ridicule – and for obvious reasons. They knew they were taking money away from local councils when they voted for austerity cuts to their funding, so they knew that services would be cut.

These responses therefore seem entirely appropriate:

Rishi Sunak is facing the possibility of another rebellion when Parliament is asked to approve a new funding deal for local councils in the near future.

It seems that these Tories have presented their government with a lose-lose situation: either set themselves up to lose the funding vote in Parliament, or set themselves up to lose the election when the amount of funding approved by Parliament turns out not to be enough.

Perhaps this is a good moment to remind you that the people of the UK can have all the public services they want. The only thing missing is the political will to provide it.

The UK is the fifth-richest economy in the world, meaning there is plenty of money available. Most of it is held by a small number of extremely rich millionaires and billionaires, many of whom would not object to paying a little more tax if it frees up money for public services.

But the Tory government – including some of the MPs now demanding more funding – is determined to cut taxes for the richest people, rather than increasing them.

This is a problem that the Tories created for us, with a plan to blame councils in the face of any backlash. Now it is backfiring onto them. Serves them right.


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Bill is passed to stop us boycotting Israeli products – even after the genocide

A lamppost sticker promoting boycott, divestment and sanctions. Note that it demands “justice for Palestine” and makes no anti-Semitic statements.

Considering everything that has happened since October 7, did nobody in the UK’s Tory government stop to think that, perhaps, this piece of legislation is now in bad taste?

It has been hard to collect information on this Bill because nobody in the media seems to have covered it. I wonder why.

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Fortunately the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians has a bit of context:

Yes indeed.

The Bill – which still has to pass through the House of Lords – now explicitly demands that local authorities may not boycott products from a country that currently stands accused of genocide and may soon be a convicted, genocidal, rogue state.

That can’t be right.

This Site has discussed the situation previously, and some of what I wrote then bears repeating:

The innocently-titled Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill … specifically forbids public bodies like local councils from taking into account human rights abuses committed by foreign governments when making decisions, including on procurement of goods and services.

You see how harmful this legislation is, in the light of Israel’s activities since October 7, 2023?

The Bill specifically forbids such public bodies from ever refusing to take goods and services from Israel, the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and/or the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, no matter what atrocities are committed there.

Some have suggested a simple way around the issue:

Personally, I think this would lay any councils following such advice open to accusations of boycott by the back door – for example, if they could not explain why they would not take Israeli goods that appear to be the most economical option.

Perhaps a better way forward would be simply to rename the legislation.

Why not call it the UK (Unconditional Support for Genocide) Bill?


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Did you know councils will have to pay for asylum seekers after the Tory government ends hotel contracts?

These will be happy: the racists of Britain First must be celebrating Suella Braverman’s decision to accede to their demands and stop housing asylum-seekers at hotels. But with the number of people coming here dropping by only 20 per cent, is it a premature celebration? Will these hotels keep the migrants, but with councils forced to pay the bill?

Read this:

The UK government intends to terminate contracts with 50 hotels currently housing asylum seekers by the end of January, a move that threatens to offload the £8m daily cost onto already strained local councils. This decision emerges as part of the government’s broader efforts to tackle illegal migration and reduce the cost associated with processing and housing asylum seekers.

Critics argue it will merely shift the burden onto local councils, already grappling with financial strain and housing shortages. The Local Government Association (LGA), the national voice of local government in the UK, has warned that councils may have to house these asylum seekers in the very hotels the government is vacating. They call for additional funding and consultation in these decisions, underscoring the need for local authorities to be adequately equipped to accommodate these individuals.

The impression This Writer had, from watching our rubbish mainstream media news reports, was that the number of people getting across the Channel in boats had fallen by an amount significant enough that these hotels weren’t needed any more.

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Here’s a government tweet on the subject:

See what I mean?

There’s nothing about asylum-seekers being housed in the same hotels, but with local authorities forced to pay for it with the money they should be spending on public services.

It seems Suella Braverman is forcing your council to take the blame for her failure to handle the refugee issue.

Source: UK Government to End Hotel Contracts for Asylum Seekers, Leaving Local Councils to Shoulder the Burden


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Lord Sugar finally discovers the consequences of supporting Conservatives

Sugar: He’s probably not feeling too sweet right now.

I appear to have handed Lord Sugar his arse, without really trying.

He was on Twitter this morning (September 25), complaining about rubbish on the streets of Hackney. Here’s what he said and what I jotted off in response:

As you can see, a few people seem to have enjoyed my reply.

Of course, it does have the virtue of accuracy.


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Councils are going bankrupt after the Tory government cut their funding

Council tax bill: but the levy on residents of council areas won’t save some authorities, because it is a massive cut in CENTRAL government grant that is bankrupting them.

There’s not a lot to add to this because the fault is self-evidently with the Conservative government in Westminster.

Oh – this is different from the situation in Birmingham that was brought about by a coalition Conservative/Liberal Democrat administration imposing a sexist bonus scheme, for which the now-Labour-run council is going bankrupt while trying to pay compensation.

The fault still lies with the Tories, either way.


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If Birmingham is ‘bankrupt’ it is not because of Labour but TORY mismanagement

A Labour-run council has effectively declared bankruptcy, leading to mockery from Conservative MPs who are equating it with the way a Labour government would run the UK – wrongly.

Yes, Birmingham City Council has issued a section 114 notice, confirming that all new spending, with the exception of protecting vulnerable people and statutory services, must stop immediately – after receiving a £760m bill to settle equal pay claims.

It comes after a Supreme Court ruling back in 2012 found in favour of mostly female employees of Birmingham City Council – and that a bonus scheme that was handed out to staff in certain roles favoured those which were mainly taken up by men.

The Tories caused the problem that led to Birmingham Council’s woes

But here’s the kicker: the court ruling relates to people who were working at the council from 2004 to 2010 – when it was not controlled by Labour. Indeed, records show that in 2004 – the year from which claims could be made, the council was run by the Conservative Party, in coalition with the Liberal Democrats.

For most of the period covered by the court ruling, the council was under no overall control.

The plot thickens

When the council originally lost its Supreme Court appeal, back in 2012, it had been ordered to save £600 million by 2017 – by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition government.

It could afford to borrow £429 million of the £757 million it was expecting to have to pay – but would have to get special dispensation from the government of the day to take out any more loans.

It seems likely that no such dispensation was forthcoming. This would indicate that it is not Labour, but the Conservatives, who are responsible for Birmingham Council’s precarious financial position.

So when MPs like Richard Holden, below, took to the social media to say things like

he was wrong. The council has been bankrupted by his own party (with help from the Liberal Democrats). Or so it seems to This Writer.

Some Tories, like Simon Clarke (below), have claimed that Birmingham is just one of many Labour-run councils that are now bankrupt. But this is to deny that Conservative-run councils are also out of money, as the context box indicates:

The vast majority of local authority funding comes from central government in the form of the Aggregate External Grant (AEG). It is this money that pays for the vast majority of council services.

The government of the day determines the amount to be given to each council.

This means that, if any council is struggling to provide services, it is likely to be because the Westminster government has not provided enough AEG funding.

So, again, it seems the Conservative government – not individual councils, no matter what the colour of their ruling political group – is responsible if any councils are in danger of financial collapse.


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Is latest council loss REALLY a ‘bounce’ against Labour’s attack on workers’ rights?

Let’s answer the headline question straight away: This Writer doesn’t think so.

Keir Starmer’s announcement that he’s abandoning yet another pledge – this one to strengthen the rights of UK employees – probably came too late to influence the results of last week’s council elections.

It’s more likely to be part of a long-term shift towards Independent candidates that we saw enacted across the country at the local elections in May.

For clarity: the Ayresome ward in Middlesbrough has been won from Labour by an Independent candidate:

This Writer knows little about the winner apart from her name: Jackie Young. From what I can see, she is not a former Labour Party member, as so many of those who took seats from Keir Starmer’s party in May were.

My guess, then, is that she was offering policies that voters in Ayresome actually wanted, as opposed to the current Starmer Party we-do-what-we-want-because-you-have-to-vote-for-us nonsense. I’m willing to stand corrected if necessary, but experience suggests that’s how it is.

Remember what happened in May, when and expected Starmerite landslide turned into a trickle of extra seats for Labour while the Green Party and a large number of Independents who had been booted out of Starmer’s party (or had left of their own accord) cleaned up?

Here’s a reminder from Vox Political‘s article of May 5:

But the biggest kick in the teeth for the main parties – especially Labour – is the strong performance of councillors who have been expelled from that party for being too left-wing (other excuses are available).

Usually when a person leaves a political party – or is, as in these cases, removed – and stand as an independent, they sink without a trace. Look at the performance of the Labour quitters who formed Change UK while Jeremy Corbyn was in charge, and then lost their seats in the 2019 general election.

Instead, independent left-wing candidates are retaining their seats across England.

Here are a few examples:

This is in Portsmouth:

This is in Windsor:

To me, this indicates that people are starting to give up on political tribalism – they’re not all voting for candidates just because of the name of the party those people represent.

Instead, they are voting for the people they know will represent them.

We should bear in mind that these are council elections in wards with low electorates and low turnouts.

But council election results are regarded as forecasts for general elections.

The times are changing. The Parliamentary elites have tried to dictate the policies we can support and the people available to get our vote – and across the country, people are saying they’re not going to put up with it.

It’s the way we are. We’ll put up with a lot – but there come a point when someone will try to tell us what to do and we’ll say: “No.”

Keir Starmer won’t learn any lessons from this. My impression is that he’s too deeply into the pockets of right-wing donors to hear the pleas of those who actually vote election candidates onto councils and into Parliament.

Let us hope they make their message clear when the general election is finally called.


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