The government’s misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts

The presentation of the finance settlement for local authorities has been inaccurate, inconsistent and damaging to the reputation of councils and councillors across the country; Sir Robin Wales, the directly elected Mayor of the London Borough of Newham, asks how ministers are held to account for misleading the public

David-Cameron-Eric-Pickles In the week the local government finance settlement has been confirmed, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Communities Bob Neill stands in Parliament telling members that no council will face a cut of more than 8.8 per cent this year.

For the first draft which came out late last year, it was 8.9%: so civil servants have clearly found some extra cash down the back of the sofa after the wave of criticism from local authority leaders about the scale and pace of the cuts. This wasn’t limited to Labour boroughs – only this week Blackpool’s Peter Callow, a Conservative leader, came out publicly to say this government didn’t understand the damage these plans would do to his community.

And of course, that extra percentage point announced by Bob Neill today will equate to only about £300,000 for my area of Newham. Without wishing to sound ungrateful it doesn’t come anywhere near to bridging the gap caused by a £44 million cut in one year. Or explaining why, as one of the poorest boroughs in the country, we’re absorbing the highest level of cuts.

We will do our best to manage through these tough times, and protect the services that matter to residents, but there’s no getting away from the fact that we are being hit hardest in local government: not least because the cuts in council services are being heavily frontloaded this year.

They are being made at a pace that is ruled out as dangerous and unmanageable in policing or the NHS. But what I really take issue with is the manifest dishonesty ministers have employed in their presentation of how much they are cutting out of our budgets.

Where does Bob Neill get his figure of 8.8% from?

What most people don’t know is that at the beginning of this process, when the provisional settlement was first proposed, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, invented a completely new measure of local authority funding. This was called ‘Revenue Spending Power’. It was done to hide Mr Pickles’s cuts.

The new measure included – for the first time ever – the council tax which local authorities collect. It also included, as Professor Colin Talbot of the University of Manchester has highlighted, £1bn of NHS money which has already been counted as part of the NHS budget. We still don’t know how much of this we will be able to spend, or what new duties will be attached to it. In addition, the measure used as its baseline the Emergency Budget in June – which had already significantly reduced our income from last year’s settlement.

So it wasn’t a comparison from one year’s settlement to another’s: and it didn’t show us the year on year cuts.

In Newham this bit of jiggery pokery from the Department for Communities and Local Government masked the fact that this year we will receive £43.7 million less from central government, which is in fact a cut of almost 14% of the total. This scale of cuts is reckless and puts at risk much of the improvement in services achieved through the previous Labour government’s investment.

And a day or two later, Eric Pickles himself used a different way of measuring cuts, telling the public that spend per head of population was the way to judge whether the finance settlement was fair. This, according to the DCLG, was an attempt to ‘demystify’ the funding system. The fact that this was presented in the interests of transparency would be laughable if it didn’t have such a serious impact on my streets.

Politicians present figures in a way that works for them. There is nothing new about that. But two different figures in a week is quite something. I can’t recall this kind of political manipulation being applied to the finance settlement before, and quite frankly it shows patent disregard for the public. At a time when the greatest cuts to public services ever are being coldly implemented – whatever the cost to the economy – perhaps it’s naïve of me to expect some honesty about spending policy.

And perhaps the fact that ministers aren’t even comfortable presenting the truth of their damaging cuts finally shows that this government does have a conscience hidden away somewhere. Small consolation for my residents, who are on the receiving end of the most brutal local government cuts in the country.

http://twitter.com/shamikdas/status/33095978487652352 Shamik Das

RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE by the Mayor of Newham
http://twitter.com/yorkierosie/status/33096572589834240 yorkierosie

RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/b_sandsben/status/33096762264653824 Ben Winstanley

RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/falseecon/status/33097272711450624 False Economy

RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/brokenofbritain/status/33097341019885568 Broken OfBritain

RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/octave21/status/33097537825021952 Robert Dixon

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/jamesmills1984/status/33098036401934337 James Mills

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
Deborah Segalini

RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/houseoftwits/status/33098689576697856 House Of Twits

RT @leftfootfwd The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/cutchswife/status/33098880052633600 cutchswife

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/mrmilesweaver/status/33100326286401536 Miles Weaver

RT @HouseofTwits: RT @leftfootfwd The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/biggervoice/status/33101405178966016 Jan Bennett

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/smithattheedge/status/33102387845672960 Chris Smith

RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/dianehain/status/33105061219401729 Diane Hain

RT @HouseofTwits: RT @leftfootfwd The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/thercutsnotours/status/33106287919112192 Ian Rathbone

The presentation of the finance settlement for local authorities has been inaccurate, inconsistent and damaging to… http://fb.me/zR1hESjD
http://twitter.com/deardaveandnick/status/33107443600855040 Bern O’Donoghue

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/double_karma/status/33107569648074752 Double.Karma

RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/salardeen/status/33114104545677312 salardeen

RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/janedaisypain/status/33118388817494017 Jane Phillips

RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/spsot/status/33119207029874688 Spir.Sotiropoulou

RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts http://bit.ly/eqUbY9
http://twitter.com/nhsspy/status/33122812050800640 Watching You

RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/pareayh/status/33136135265853441 Pauline Hammerton

RT @FalseEcon: RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/copwatcher/status/33171476236472320 Kevin Blowe

Newham's Mayor on @leftfootfwd re misleading claims, not saying govt has cut £75m over 4 years but he's cutting £116m http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/shodanalexm/status/33197573569249280 Alex Marsh

RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://newhamnettles.blogspot.com/ Mike Law

Hmmm, the same evil government that will be lending Newham Council £40 million to assist the authority in its joint venture with West Ham United FC to secure the Olympic Stadium.

Maybe Sir Robin should cut back on the £8 million plus annual spend on consultants, or do more to fill job vacancies rather than spending £23 million p.a. on agency staff.
http://twitter.com/guid0mcman/status/33219764738326528 Guy Manchester

Ths govnmnt R always coming w/ misleading claims & cobbled figures. Hre's sum more lies dressed as truths: http://j.mp/h2xSwY
http://twitter.com/jodatu/status/33256932689055744 John Turner

RT @leftfootfwd: The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts: http://bit.ly/ieVGWE
http://twitter.com/cllrkrichards/status/33276476967100416 Kevin Richards

Leftfoot forward expose the myth:- "The government's misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts" – http://bit.ly/eqUbY9
http://twitter.com/kingmike01/status/33297985072795648 Mike King

The government’s misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts http://ht.ly/3PVSU
Mr. Sensible

There seems to be a consensous across the political divide in local government that the central government is not being honest.
carole blackwell-price

This government seems hell bent in apportioning blame and deflecting from thier own misshandling of the deficit by throwing the British public into a recless and feckless social xperiment to reduce bankers debt. I hold serious reservations for families young and old to come through this folly without fetalities due front line service cuts that do not reflect cuts at 8.8%
Anon E Mouse

Why is this fine blog giving space to this self opinionated money wasting disgrace to the Labour Party?

This man agreed spending on the Council building of £111 million in one of the poorest areas in the country. Some of the lights cost £1800 each which I’m sure will be appreciated by the staff being handed their redundancy notices on their last days in work.

He reminds me of the very people Neil Kinnock says he disliked so much. Wouldn’t the £92million over budget on the lavish offices have been better spent on the poor?

Does “carol blackwell-price” above think spending decent people’s money on lavish goodies in the office like designer chairs and tables instead of caring for the elderly is appropriate?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11984977

One of his former colleagues, Mike Law, a former councillor at the borough who has criticised its style of management, said: “Sir Robin Wales has cultivated an administration that is little more than a personal fiefdom.

For three Building 1000s you could get an Emirates Stadium “His spending on follies, foibles and self-promotion is unquestioned by compliant elected members.”

The sooner the Labour Party distances itself from these unpleasant types of disgraceful individuals – think Dolly Draper and co – the better. Giving blog space without thinking of how badly it will reflect on Labour devalues a great site.
http://daringsearch.com/new/statutory-duties-and-consultations-2/ Statutory Duties and Consultations | Daringsearch

[...] The government’s misleading claims about the scale of local government cuts (leftfootforward.org) [...]