“Addicted to austerity”

Local councils, which have already suffered years of funding cuts under the coalition government, will be forced to brace for even more, as it was announced today (December 18) that local authority budgets would be slashed by a further 6.4 per cent.

 
Since 2010, local authorities have seen their funding plummet by almost a third—27 per cent—according to the National Audit Office (NAO). As with nearly every aspect of public life in the UK under the current government, it is the poorest areas that are being hit the hardest by these local authority cuts.

 
“Local councils are already at breaking point with services being cut to the bone or stopped completely,” said Unite national officer Fiona Farmer, in response to the government announcement. “Many are staring into the financial abyss of bankruptcy because of this latest round of cuts which will eat into key services we all rely on.”

 
“Local government needs a fair funding settlement,” she added. “It is simply not sustainable to expect councils serving some of the poorest communities in the country to bear the brunt of the Tory-led government’s addiction to austerity.”

 
The NAO also found that by 2015, local authorities will see their funding reduced by a whopping 37 per cent in real terms.
Now, half a million fewer people employed by local authorities will be serving their local communities than when the coalition government came to power.

 
A BBC analysis found that in 2011, for the first time in living memory, central government became larger than local government and the trend continued in the following years. This was despite the fact that prime minister David Cameron trumpeted a smaller central government with a greater emphasis on localism when he first came to power.

 
As the war on local authorities rages on, the public can expect to see public services we normally take for granted—waste management, fire and rescue services, education, libraries and social care—to be seriously compromised.

 
To read the full NAO report on the sustainability of local authorities, many of which will be brought to the brink of bankruptcy following years of austerity cuts, see here.