The question for me continues to be, how were people so easily conned into thinking that not properly funding essential services was ever a sensible idea? How have the Conservatives maintained their veneer of 'economic competence' for so long?
The media tells them the Conservatives are great at looking after money and that Labour is terrible at it. If all sections of the media tell people something long enough they start to believe it.
Thatcher reduced central government funding for councils and she capped the rates/council tax in the 80s. The rules she established have been used by subsequent tory governments to force councils to use private companies to supply services previously funded from the rates and council house rents plus central government grants. The budgets were under the control of the councils themselves and managed for the benefit of residents without funds being siphoned off to private company shareholders.
Thatcher left power in 1990, 8 years later we had a labour government. Capping council spending is a good idea haven by worked in one for 12 years and see levels of incompetence that would not be suffered in private industries. Checking my own council tax against inflation and its 50% higher than it would be if it had expanded in line with inflation. New Labour increased council spending And there was waste galore. Councils are run by tinpot politicians and little dictators who forget they are there to serve us not we exist to fund them. Thurrock’s problem is a clear example of them branching out in to commercial areas where they had no computable. Birmingham’s problem with their IT system demonstrates the level of incompetence that shows how they can’t be trusted.
@rodericde876 This is down to 13 yrs of tory government and their massive real terms inflation adjusted ongoing funding cuts for all public services including the NHS since 2010. This is what the tories always do. Even the UN condemned our country for its high levels of poverty, homelessness and inequality etc in 2015. And they said it was caused by our conservative governments austerity policies since 2010, which they said absolutely weren't necessary, but was purely a political decision. And since 2015 things here in the UK have gotten a whole lot worse. Average wages since 2010 haven't kept up with inflation and its much worse now after this recent cost of living crisis, surging inflation out of control
I mean people actively voted for big society, doubled down when voting against a move away from fptp, then voted for a referendum, then voted to leave EU, then voted for Boris Johnson. Not entirely sure we can fully blame Cameron.
@@jezlawrence720’actively’ would suggest the public knew what they were voting for. It’s been proven that in 2010 the Tories lied and then enacted a ideological programme of austerity and the shrinking of the state. The so called “Big Society” was a cover to transfer wealth from the state into private pockets and they have been successful at doing that for nearly fourteen years. So we can blame Cameron in part for the mess that we are seeing coming to pass. Britain is truly broken.
I moved to France seven years ago. Our local town where we food shop spent more money renovating one car park two years ago than our former district council spent on its entire budget in the same year. Here towns appear to keep all property taxes and business rates to be spent locally allowing them to plan for the next 10-20 years.
@@BoyeeSmudgerUsed to have shares in the big banks when they needed a bailout- Cameron and Osborne sold the shares off at a fraction of their potential return to their chums. The fact the Tories call our country UK Plc tells you all you need to know.
The worst part of austerity is that there's nothing to show for it. Double our national debt, costlier services, higher taxation, a broken economy and a government with no money to spend. Cameron/Osborne's austerity will go down in history as the one of the most disastrous and flawed economic policies for a century if not more.
@@keithparker1346 you confusing criticism of conservatives with support of labour 🤣🤣 but which particular bit of Conservative brexit austerity are you defending be specific 🤣😂
@@betperrins7528 thats because they never rebuilt the stock, yet these councils are falling over because they have invested in hair brain schemes to try and produce additional revenue quicky, when in reality all they needed to do was build houses and become landlords and plan for the long term and not the short term.
It'd make a difference, but...don't forget councils are not immune from corruption and they're not immune from going broke, just look at a few of them. Croydon is the biggest example of this (despite Tories being in power for a very long time). I'd say both councils & HAs need to up their game and start building houses & flats that are realistically affordable and this stupid unrealistic so-called prices that only the upper middle class and rich foreigners can afford, while the working class gets left out non stop.
PM Sunak, (Unelected), went for a trip to India, returned to UK, gave Tata Steel, (Indian company), £1.3 Billion in government money. Let that sink in.
@@ScandalUKand Why then come back home and give a Indian company TaTa £1.2 billion of UK money? The tax payer should ask if there is conflict of interest. Seems to me his wife has shares in TaTa.
The PM "grants" 💷 💷 💷 Which Act of Parliament allows the PM or the Government to grant our taxpayers 💷 💷 💷 funds to third parties, to which maximum budgetary level and at what frequency without parliamentary approval ? 🤔
Exactly. They are continually taking a larger amount of tax from a smaller and smaller slice of the pie, whilst constantly reducing the tax burden on the people who own the pie shop.
Re the bus issue; the London area was indeed privatised after the metropolitan areas. I was on a research project funded by the T&G (now Unite) to follow events. It soon became obvious that it was the deregulation of contracts given to outer London areas with a 42 day notice to withdraw routes/bus numbers as specified that was destroying public services as the new private companies opted to only run busses on profitable routes at profitable times. The London area was not deregulated and tenders were based on maintaining service requirements throughout the period applied for. Prior to the breakup of London Transport, the Tube, London busses and Country Bus were cross subsidized with profits from the busiest areas providing funding for others. The system was set up that way because previously private busses were a ramshackle bunch uninterested in wages or maintenance or timetables but simply turfed people off if they saw a larger queue on the opposite side of the road! That's why it was changed in 1933 - a far more intelligent system to one Thatcher and co ever dreamed of but then it was never about service for the public only profit for the new owners.
The local 84 service between Barnet and Potters Bar was withdrawn with the specific aim of saving money. Withdrawn by no less than Grant Shnapps at the time.
How can councils go bankrupt when the council tax never gets reduced in fact is constantly rising whilst public spending and public services are almost none existant is it about incompetence or corruption i wonder
Total garbage, Austerity didn't cause birmingham Council to waste £100 million on crap IT systems, Austerity didn't cause Woking to waste hundreds of millions on failed property projects. Council corruption and profligacy have been endemic within the country for decades. The elected officials are responsible for the abject failure of councils, and it is these individuals, often on huge salaries and pensions who should be hit with claw back rather than expecting the average families living in these council areas having to pay for it. Council leaders should have their pensions seized and should be fired with no golden handshake and reward for failure.
In Ireland councils collect the property tax. They may increase or decrease it by 15% as they see fit. But but but they can only retain 80% of what they collect. The 20% goes into a common fund that goes to the government who, in turn redistribute the common fund to poorer Councils. Thus big cities like Dublin Cork Galway subdise less populated counties. Retired people may exempt themselves from paying. But they pay 8% interest when the money is eventually taken from their estate after death.
Thanks for this. Scotland's council tax system was briefly mentioned. More like this from other neighbouring countries should be presented, albeit Westminster's "we know best" attitude supported by a feudal FPTP 🗳️ voting system will result in further discourse 🤔
@@charrogate Dublin Cork and other big city councils with high property value homes help support less populated but large rural counties in the west of Ireland. Otherwise they would have bad local roads and other facilities
I'm sure austerity has played a mega role, but it seems like councils are going bust over, over paying staff, risky investments and new IT systems, not actually investing the money back into the public who are forced to pay for their council area up keep? Disgraceful. If council need to cut back, they shouldn't be paying staff more and investing in wind farms which leads to failures in balancing the books. Lot of councils do put funds in off shore safe haven accounts and do invest in stock, this shouldn't be allowed. Also, get rid of those stupid leaflets and newspapers councils produce that end up in your recycling bin the moment they go through your letter box, waste of money.
Birmingham City Council also introduced a voice recognition IT system, activated by speaking to it on the phone. The problem was the system was also designed for paying bills, so when a Brummie spoke to the system, detailing numbers, it couldn't recognise five and nine, which they pronounce as 'foive' and 'noine'. A true story...
I look back to to the last decade and dream how different Britain would be if Brown won the election or David Miliband beat Ed? We’d not have had austerity and we’d never have had the eu referendum.
Gordon Brown had "prudence" which was austerity by a different name. The first Labour government was extremely frugal. Labour only began to spend more when the global economy turned which the Tories also do.
The more interesting question is what would happen if British people didn’t consistently vote against their own interests? Perhaps then more serious politicians would get a chance to lead the country…
History is full of what ifs, except that the disaster of the last 13 years was entirely self inflicted by a colossally stupid major part of the electorate.
@@archvaldor Sticking to Tory spending commitments for the first two years was ludicrous- Ken Clarke said he would not have done the same, and he bequeathed Labour a strong economy. Ironies!
Councils are to blame for going bust, they have never cut their cloth to meet their need. Loads of corruption involving certain communities, the usual Labour story.
Thatcher-esc policies are to blame for the root of this issue. Osborne and Cameron, then compounded the problem with the austerity. Finally, the bungaling baffoons of the brexit years drove the final nail in the UK economy coffin. All of this is going to be astronomically difficult to reverse. I suppose one step would be to stop buisnesses keeping all the money for their shareholders, and not investing. The other would be to examine how councils spend their funds; too much money is wasted.
Noam Chomsky had the best explanation of Austerity, paraphrasing a little but he said to understand it you simple need to understand it is just another name for Class War.
I am concerned that Finnancial services will be used to fund our local councils charging high rates of interest. This will then involve charging ordinary working people more in taxes and likely still not provide a high level of service.
Expect the situation to get worse as entitlement continues to soar, working from home means recruitment won't be limited by bricks and mortar and the pensions burden grows.
Bad investments are to blame, Thurrock didn’t invest in its community but for years in a scheme that was found to be corruption lining the pockets of the then leader of its council. Many of the others invest in vanity projects rather then being responsible and investing the same in community services which are sustainable
My understanding is Brums council got into financial trouble whon they were under the Tories. I believe this info comes from Phil on 'A Different Bias' if my memory serves me.
Consolidate resources and devolve the blame? One could almost think we're gearing up for an election! On a serious note, it's deeply sad to see councils' dash for yield burn up like that. It materially affects an area and hurts people over generations to then have to recover from these errors, which few had any input in.
Should have not voted for the lie of austerity don't think you could find one true torie who has a cost of living crisis and they don't care we are the other as far as that mob is concerned 😢
"when you look at Scotland" "Just look at Scotland" "Scotland does this thing" When you media people say these things, you very rarely take into account or mention the Barnett formula. Scotland, NI and Wales get extra money to provide services to their population. The Barnett formula is nonsense and needs to go, even Joel Barnett thought it was stupid and shouldn't have been continued. An independent Scotland would not have that money. It's good that you talk about these things but you should be truthful.
No they would not need that money they would just keep all there money not send to the treasury and get a % back 72million in taxation raised in Scotland last yr and received 36 million back to run Scotland
Cameron & Osborne in effect raided Local Councils budgets and their was nothing Councils could do. All Councils have a Constitution and theyre restrained by what they can and cannot do. Yet our national government has no such restraint. That is why, if we had a written constitution , Councils could have and should have been protected by it. The relationship is ALL wrong. Local government should be empowered and be in possession of powers that central government simply cannot infringe upon. The Tories (if you notice) love to demonise local government, ham-stringing Councils who many buy into the narrative the Tories give. But hey...
Our council keeps putting up car parking prices in town, car parks being one of few assets they have left, yet there’s very little left open in the town worth visiting.
Britain and even the UK as a whole is disunited politically, socially, culturally and linguistically. The poor political choices and decisions of Brexit have made the lack of unity ever clearer for the entire world to see. It's not just disunited, it's also completely imbalanced. Politically, it has devolved governments, but most of the power lies in Tory Westminster which has the UK at political loggerheads. These devolved governments squabble and fight amongst each other which details the disunity. Brexit was divisive and it shows how disunited the UK is with the occupied region called "Northern Ireland" and the country of Scotland voting No to Brexit. The UK is literally split down the middle in the Brexit debacle which makes it politically disunited. Furthermore, the UK isn't a voluntary union because Scotland is actively being denied another independence referendum post Brexit - this, again, makes it a disunited partnership + an imbalanced and undemocratic one. Welsh and Scottish independence is growing while talks of Irish reunification are on everyone's lips - this, again, demonstrates a disunited and imbalanced union. Socially, culturally and linguistically it is also divided and disunited as the different parts have their own culture and language. Brexit itself limits multiculturalism and encourages exclusive nationalism and nativism which in effect breeds racism and xenophobia (the very core of Brexit and Brexiteers). Great Britain was never united, but instead it's DISUNITED and IMBALANCED as well as UNDEMOCRATIC and UNJUST. And it's actively breaking up which is the ultimate win 😅
Agreed. But the English, who moan and whine about subsidy junkies from Scotland and Wales taking poor England for every penny, would never allow the UK to be dissolved. Because let us not kid ourselves, the English see the UK/GB as being England, they don't see it as a union of countries and differing cultures, they see Scotland and Wales as conquered territories administered by England for the benefit of England.
You guys are just picking at the carcass of the issue. The big issue is that the UK has £2.3 TRILLION in foreign debt, and is paying £100 BILLION in interest alone every year. That is around £1,500 for every man, woman, and child in the UK. These debts will have to be paid, and fundamentally it will be through higher taxes AND lower expenditure. How and why the UK got into this mess doesn't matter today. The likelihood is that income tax AND council tax will have to go up. And while we're on this subject, can I just mention that Brexit has been calculated to cost the economy 4-6% in lost GDP, which is calculated at £100 - 150 BILLION in lost GDP. The exchequer could have expected to collect roughly £40-60 BILLION in taxes, which would have gone a LONG way to alleviating this mess. But no. So, higher income and council taxes are continuing to be the Brexit benefit. All those Brexiteers, enjoy receiving your tax notices! 🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑
@@seamuspadraigsanders431 Debunked? Aside from your imagination, what reputable independent economists have published their findings, and where can I see that? I won't hold my breath, because every economist I've read so far, including the OBR, have confirmed as stated.
Is it true that the government even takes fines issued for parking and other traffic offences off the local councils? If so that would explain why there are so few traffic wardens when they are desperately needed.
Would that be the same austerity measures that the pre-Corbyn Labour Party enabled by abstaining on every relevant vote rather than voting against them?
By the way, the PWLB is publicly available, and if you think no more than 26 additional councils is heading for s114, think again, or download the PWLB spreadsheet and do the math yourself…..
Well said though mention of both is not likely to find favour with the NS. Livingstone is the most significant left wing politician of the last fifty years. Liverpool City Council showed real bravery in defying the Tories in the 1980s.
Blaming austerity is not the entire answer. I worked in data analytics from 2007 and sild a lot into UK licdl authorities. They had hopeless visibility on spend and oricurement data then. Surprise, surprise BCC and Thurrock were on my list of most frustratingly retarded procurement and spend practices.
To be fair to Birmingham, the historical equal pay liability is hardly “mis-management”. Big difference from the Tory councils speculating on commercial property with ZERO experience in this
You don't see anyone on these councils taking pay cuts,the people at the top are earning more than the prime minister, why can't there jobs be put out to tender
Does anyone in British government know how to budget and invest properly? It's so simple as to be criminal that people can't do it. Where are the consequences for the parties who drive a council into bankruptcy?
The government loading more and more onto local councils but providing less and less central funding to provide the services, is why we are where we are now. Not rocket science.
I think it is nuts to trust Labour positions on much given what's happened to most policies so far, I think it is completely ludicrous to trust Keir Stalin on devolution in particular given the treatment/relationship with metro mayors, the way the right wing of the party including Starmer has been running Labour internally, seizing control of CLP's, parachuting in candidates and overriding the will of local members and their communities. Interesting commentry, but that is a lot of context to simply breeze over/skip. I find it hard to believe these pundits aren't aware of that (they mentioned Driscoll, his treatment alone is enough to question Labour on commitment to devolution), but for some reason find it all irrelevant? Austerity chickens coming home to roost, a serious incoming government should be looking to do nothing like it ever again... 😐
Wholeheartedly agree. Making the labour party electable by removing all the lefties from the party? 🤔 Also dealing with antisemitism by removing all the Jewish members?😄 The man is a plonker on a power trip. The sooner he's gone, the better for the party and the country.
What’s needed is a consistent layering of local government. Each layer with distinct responsibilities and tax raising powers so that people actually understand what local government does and can hold their councillors responsible .
You literally can't go broke by NOT spending money guys, its mathematically impossible for austerity to be to blame. Even this video itself doesn't say its austerity despite the title, but because certain councils refused to accept that they didn't have as much money coming in and kept spending money. In other words, the ones that went broke are the ones that refused accept austerity, which is a reduction in spending, not the ones that implemented it.
Councils are legally and morally obligated to maintain services to protect the lives and limbs of the people within their catchment. These obligations do not conveniently decrease in line with funding, in fact as funding decreases peoples needs become greater as their ability to maintain their independence is compromised. So Birmingham council had two choices: accept austerity and severely neglect the people they are legally bound to protect or attempt to maintain basic services and risk going bankrupt.
@@laurencedavey3121 There is no legal obligation to have big government with high spending, you are just making that up, and there is an equal moral obligation to be financially responsible and not go bankrupt as to provide various services. Also you can't maintain your independence by being dependent on government spending.
@@DeanScottWalsh There are legal standards which are set by central government. Local governments have to achieve these, failure means financial penalties decided by Local Government and Social Care Ombudsmen. A lot of elderly or disabled people are dependent on carers to enable them to stay in their own homes, maintaining as much independence as their life allows. These carers are provided by the council. Without them people's condition deteriorates until they require hospital or care home admission. Care homes are significantly more expensive than carers and are paid for by the council. Birmingham is relatively poor, lots of demand for adult social care.
@@laurencedavey3121 You are trying to make out that there is no choice but to have high spending. There is a choice. Not every council kept their spending high, and the ones that made cuts needed are now in a better position. You can't just treat your preference as unavoidable and claim we therefore have to do things the way you want.
@@DeanScottWalsh Not all councils have the same income and costs. We're reaching the end of austerity experiment which has destroyed the conservative party, so I don't think I'm not the one desperately pedalling a broken ideology.
Scotland's council tax system was briefly mentioned as better functioning 💪👍 More examples from other neighbouring countries should be examined, albeit Westminster's "🇬🇧 we know best" attitude supported by a feudal FPTP 🗳️ voting system will result in further discourse 🤔
It is too easy to blame this on Tory austerity - obviously a part of the story, but this country has been doddering on, flogging assets since the end of WW2. Gordon Brown, the self styled saviour of the world in financial system, who entered university at 16 or something flogged off our gold reserves and then our hospitals to trans national finance. Sane and competent people on the left and right need to come together whilst there is still time to start aright. We don't care about stupid duelling at PMQ's or about Starmer's prowess at 5 a side, or Sunaks taste in shoe leather - we do need to start caring about the plummeting state of the nation Ir is almost too late
But if both. The councils should spend better to ensure better control over there finances. However this can only be done if you have the funds to do this in the first place which comes from the government
Btw ...risky subject here..but screw it....Mass transportation of human beings fully arranged and devised by local councils involving Lorry loads ...moving point to point..collecting and dropping throughout the ...erm....UK....
It's not how much money you get it's all about how you spend it. Majority of councils are run inefficiently, the procurement they do is overpriced and a vehicle for private businesses to print money by taking it from the taxpayer without any accountability. Bristol is run by labour and is falling apart. Projects are run through one body part, are pointless and counter productive most of the time.
Perhaps we need to look at the way businessmen are running public resources. We should also look at final salary pensions which means there will always be a shortfall because people are being paid who no longer work. We should look at the salaries of chief executives. Public funding is supposed to be used for services. While women were paid less it seemed no-one saw the writing on the wall. So not only did women get their back dated pay they also got back dated pensions rated to when they gave up work. Money may be going in but the amount of that income going to services has reduced significantly.
There should be 20+ council tax bands and they should be a percentage of taxed income/ wealth. Also, no local authority should have fewer than 500,000 taxpayers and there must be cross-subsidy from councils in Blue Wall areas (yes, even Woking!) to councils in ex-industrial areas.
Austerity is supported by most of the media including those who regard themselves as on the left. That includes the so called centrists who are, in reality, on the right. Austerity is a key component of neoliberalism and its small state agenda. Can't have it both ways- neoliberalism is not pick and mix. It is all or nothing. That is the Faustian pact the public have endorsed since 1979.
It's not the second biggest council in Europe. You can't just say things that are demonstrably false and then just roll on as if nothing happened. The young boy has ink on his face 😆
Really informative. Public sector cant win , if they meet budget one year, government gives less next year. They ultimately overspend government says nothing to do with us.This could be a ploy to privatise?
Cameron & Osborne are to blame (indirectly), Birmingham local labour party are to blame for mishandling a tight budget. So both tories and labour locally are bad with taxpayers 💸💰💸
It became a Tory council after the local elections took place in 2010. So you you can’t blame Labour for the the ideological austerity that was brought in by central government that cut all centrally funded council budgets. Blame the Tories for the cuts and Tories for the mismanagement.
"Austerity is to blame for councils going bust" is it really? doubt it, it isn't brexit either, it is incompetence, poor management, people that think they know what they are doing but really don't. The public sector is full of them and the private sector is hard on their heels look at thames water. These days there seems little difference between any of the political parties, how on earth did we get to the point of so many people not being able to run a bath.
Absolutely 👍. Left or right makes no difference . Putting anyone in control of multi million pound budgets that have zero experience in managing said budgets is a recipe for disaster . Throwing more money at them just helps them hide their incompetence a little easier . Accountability for incompetence would be a start . NHS included .
Austerity polices brings... surprise surprise - austerity. Once you are heavily into debt you have no choices left but to cut expenses and/or raise taxes but why aim for austerity?
How is reducing spending causing bankruptcy? Wasn't the major debt Birmingham council owned due to the payout needed from a equal pay dispute. And the interest rates rise cause this the balloon in cost.
I live in a Tory led council. The numerous cuts by Government have forced everything to be closed or run down. Now the council cannot make any more cuts and to provide the most basic needs will declare bankruptcy. 13 years of Tory rule and Tory councils declaring bankruptcy, you couldn’t make it up
@@neilhedley6080 but council tax hasn't reduced, so how does closing services, thereby reducing costs and maintaining the same revenue through taxation cause bankruptcy?
@@jamescooke6032 Inflation, ie over 10% last year , same revenue going in , outgoing costs increased by 10%. Government funding austerity cuts for local authorities have also had a major impact as council income have been greatly reduced.
@@jamescooke6032 They also get funding from central government, and that has been cut by 50% in real terms since 2010. Their ability to raise taxes to make up the difference is curtailed.
But it's all ok because in the gentlemen's club of Westminster politics, the so-called Labour politician Ed Balls is doing a podcast with the Tory austerity architect, George Osbourne.
Austerity was necessary after Labour spent all of the country’s money. It is then left to the ‘nasty party’ to implement the cuts that are needed to make the councils economically viable. Then the councils gamble their budgets on risky projects and lose. How much did Gordon Brown lose on selling the country’s gold reserves? The system of Diversity, Inclusion and Equality is promoting people to councils and other positions of responsibility when they are not fit for purpose. This deprives competent candidates from the posts. Being inclusive simply means excluding others. We are reaping what we sow by adopting these insane left wing policies.
Economically illiterate. Labour did not spend all of the country's money. The economy was growing when Labour left office in 2010. Austerity does not work. Osborne failed by his own measure to reduce the debt and deficit, missing the targets set. Austerity inhibits economic recovery.
23% of the council tax is used to pay the council worker pensions, it’s is the ridiculous high salaries and the wastage of the inefficient councils that is the man reason for the financial problems that many council have.
Wait, so you’re telling me there was consequences to cutting the funding to all local authorities?! Who would have thought.
Lock the councillors in prison for thieving and gross negligence!
@@dianamincher6479exactly they should of never let Tories in
The question for me continues to be, how were people so easily conned into thinking that not properly funding essential services was ever a sensible idea? How have the Conservatives maintained their veneer of 'economic competence' for so long?
Gullibility.
MSM
The media tells them the Conservatives are great at looking after money and that Labour is terrible at it. If all sections of the media tell people something long enough they start to believe it.
A complicit media and opposition party - Ed Balls certainly wasn’t opposed to austerity in any meaningful sense
Because Labour is weak opposition
Thatcher reduced central government funding for councils and she capped the rates/council tax in the 80s. The rules she established have been used by subsequent tory governments to force councils to use private companies to supply services previously funded from the rates and council house rents plus central government grants. The budgets were under the control of the councils themselves and managed for the benefit of residents without funds being siphoned off to private company shareholders.
Thatcher left power in 1990, 8 years later we had a labour government. Capping council spending is a good idea haven by worked in one for 12 years and see levels of incompetence that would not be suffered in private industries. Checking my own council tax against inflation and its 50% higher than it would be if it had expanded in line with inflation. New Labour increased council spending And there was waste galore.
Councils are run by tinpot politicians and little dictators who forget they are there to serve us not we exist to fund them.
Thurrock’s problem is a clear example of them branching out in to commercial areas where they had no computable.
Birmingham’s problem with their IT system demonstrates the level of incompetence that shows how they can’t be trusted.
@rodericde876
This is down to 13 yrs of tory government and their massive real terms inflation adjusted ongoing funding cuts for all public services including the NHS since 2010. This is what the tories always do. Even the UN condemned our country for its high levels of poverty, homelessness and inequality etc in 2015. And they said it was caused by our conservative governments austerity policies since 2010, which they said absolutely weren't necessary, but was purely a political decision. And since 2015 things here in the UK have gotten a whole lot worse. Average wages since 2010 haven't kept up with inflation and its much worse now after this recent cost of living crisis, surging inflation out of control
@@davideyres955 I think you have missed the point of money going to private shareholders
Austerity, Brexit, energy...David Cameron's government is the gift that keeps on giving.
No Labour council with high immigration populations are the problem cos they swindle the local government
I mean people actively voted for big society, doubled down when voting against a move away from fptp, then voted for a referendum, then voted to leave EU, then voted for Boris Johnson.
Not entirely sure we can fully blame Cameron.
@@jezlawrence720not fully, no. The papers have alot to answer for
yes the worst government in terms of its negative impact in the age of mass suffrage.
@@jezlawrence720’actively’ would suggest the public knew what they were voting for. It’s been proven that in 2010 the Tories lied and then enacted a ideological programme of austerity and the shrinking of the state. The so called “Big Society” was a cover to transfer wealth from the state into private pockets and they have been successful at doing that for nearly fourteen years. So we can blame Cameron in part for the mess that we are seeing coming to pass. Britain is truly broken.
I moved to France seven years ago. Our local town where we food shop spent more money renovating one car park two years ago than our former district council spent on its entire budget in the same year. Here towns appear to keep all property taxes and business rates to be spent locally allowing them to plan for the next 10-20 years.
In France the French government have shares in some huge companies. Thales, Michelin, Renault are just to name a few.
What do we have?
@@BoyeeSmudgerUsed to have shares in the big banks when they needed a bailout- Cameron and Osborne sold the shares off at a fraction of their potential return to their chums. The fact the Tories call our country UK Plc tells you all you need to know.
@@BoyeeSmudger if you give me a day or so I might be able to come up with an answer.
A car park? how is that going to work when we have 15 minute cities?
@@jackdeniston59 I have only paid for parking once in seven years. You can park for free in most places and there is no obvious clamping culture.
The worst part of austerity is that there's nothing to show for it. Double our national debt, costlier services, higher taxation, a broken economy and a government with no money to spend. Cameron/Osborne's austerity will go down in history as the one of the most disastrous and flawed economic policies for a century if not more.
And the far worse part is Labour have already made their bs excuses of no money and fiscal rules and so will continue austerity policies
@@keithparker1346 you confusing criticism of conservatives with support of labour 🤣🤣
but which particular bit of Conservative brexit austerity are you defending be specific 🤣😂
@@NeilCWCampbell you do realise austerity came before Brexit? And how am I defending austerity?
@@keithparker1346 which particular bit of Conservative austerity are you defending be specific 🤣 ii
@@NeilCWCampbell I don't know why you keep posting and insisting I'm defending austerity when I'm not
The government: The damage caused by austerity has only one fix. More austerity.
just imagine if there was still council houses and council stock instead of housing associations, they would have a constant income🤷♀ from the rents
Ooh...
Certainly seems to work well for the housing associations.🤔
But right to buy along with Tory central control of capital spending meant councils had fewer and fewer properties to rent.
@@betperrins7528 thats because they never rebuilt the stock, yet these councils are falling over because they have invested in hair brain schemes to try and produce additional revenue quicky, when in reality all they needed to do was build houses and become landlords and plan for the long term and not the short term.
It'd make a difference, but...don't forget councils are not immune from corruption and they're not immune from going broke, just look at a few of them. Croydon is the biggest example of this (despite Tories being in power for a very long time).
I'd say both councils & HAs need to up their game and start building houses & flats that are realistically affordable and this stupid unrealistic so-called prices that only the upper middle class and rich foreigners can afford, while the working class gets left out non stop.
PM Sunak, (Unelected), went for a trip to India, returned to UK, gave Tata Steel, (Indian company), £1.3 Billion in government money. Let that sink in.
He went there but nobody there noticed him. He ended up having to sit with just his wife in the end.
@@ScandalUKand Why then come back home and give a Indian company TaTa £1.2 billion of UK money? The tax payer should ask if there is conflict of interest. Seems to me his wife has shares in TaTa.
Tata seem to blackmail the uk guv all the time .
@@Bertrum123 not just Tata but other Indian companies such as pharmaceutical. We buy medicines from India but give them aid money. Let that sink in.
The PM "grants" 💷 💷 💷
Which Act of Parliament allows the PM or the Government to grant our taxpayers 💷 💷 💷 funds to third parties, to which maximum budgetary level and at what frequency without parliamentary approval ? 🤔
Not taxing the rich, big businesses, or Non Doms is what causes austerity.
Exactly. They are continually taking a larger amount of tax from a smaller and smaller slice of the pie, whilst constantly reducing the tax burden on the people who own the pie shop.
Yet Council tax goes up every year and soon will be a new mortgage.
Great times hey.
Re the bus issue; the London area was indeed privatised after the metropolitan areas. I was on a research project funded by the T&G (now Unite) to follow events. It soon became obvious that it was the deregulation of contracts given to outer London areas with a 42 day notice to withdraw routes/bus numbers as specified that was destroying public services as the new private companies opted to only run busses on profitable routes at profitable times.
The London area was not deregulated and tenders were based on maintaining service requirements throughout the period applied for.
Prior to the breakup of London Transport, the Tube, London busses and Country Bus were cross subsidized with profits from the busiest areas providing funding for others.
The system was set up that way because previously private busses were a ramshackle bunch uninterested in wages or maintenance or timetables but simply turfed people off if they saw a larger queue on the opposite side of the road! That's why it was changed in 1933 - a far more intelligent system to one Thatcher and co ever dreamed of but then it was never about service for the public only profit for the new owners.
The local 84 service between Barnet and Potters Bar was withdrawn with the specific aim of saving money. Withdrawn by no less than Grant Shnapps at the time.
How can councils go bankrupt when the council tax never gets reduced in fact is constantly rising whilst public spending and public services are almost none existant is it about incompetence or corruption i wonder
Total garbage, Austerity didn't cause birmingham Council to waste £100 million on crap IT systems, Austerity didn't cause Woking to waste hundreds of millions on failed property projects.
Council corruption and profligacy have been endemic within the country for decades.
The elected officials are responsible for the abject failure of councils, and it is these individuals, often on huge salaries and pensions who should be hit with claw back rather than expecting the average families living in these council areas having to pay for it.
Council leaders should have their pensions seized and should be fired with no golden handshake and reward for failure.
In Ireland councils collect the property tax. They may increase or decrease it by 15% as they see fit.
But but but they can only retain 80% of what they collect.
The 20% goes into a common fund that goes to the government who, in turn redistribute the common fund to poorer Councils.
Thus big cities like Dublin Cork Galway subdise less populated counties.
Retired people may exempt themselves from paying.
But they pay 8% interest when the money is eventually taken from their estate after death.
Sounds reasonable
Thanks for this.
Scotland's council tax system was briefly mentioned.
More like this from other neighbouring countries should be presented, albeit Westminster's "we know best" attitude supported by a feudal FPTP 🗳️ voting system will result in further discourse 🤔
@@charrogate Dublin Cork and other big city councils with high property value homes help support less populated but large rural counties in the west of Ireland.
Otherwise they would have bad local roads and other facilities
@@charrogate Forgot to say
Revenue Commissioners collect the tax. When the council collected it there were a lot of non payer's.
I'm sure austerity has played a mega role, but it seems like councils are going bust over, over paying staff, risky investments and new IT systems, not actually investing the money back into the public who are forced to pay for their council area up keep? Disgraceful. If council need to cut back, they shouldn't be paying staff more and investing in wind farms which leads to failures in balancing the books. Lot of councils do put funds in off shore safe haven accounts and do invest in stock, this shouldn't be allowed. Also, get rid of those stupid leaflets and newspapers councils produce that end up in your recycling bin the moment they go through your letter box, waste of money.
Maybe if you charged the owners of the empty house, instead of charging the renters then you will be making more money.
Birmingham City Council also introduced a voice recognition IT system, activated by speaking to it on the phone. The problem was the system was also designed for paying bills, so when a Brummie spoke to the system, detailing numbers, it couldn't recognise five and nine, which they pronounce as 'foive' and 'noine'. A true story...
I look back to to the last decade and dream how different Britain would be if Brown won the election or David Miliband beat Ed? We’d not have had austerity and we’d never have had the eu referendum.
Gordon Brown had "prudence" which was austerity by a different name. The first Labour government was extremely frugal. Labour only began to spend more when the global economy turned which the Tories also do.
The more interesting question is what would happen if British people didn’t consistently vote against their own interests? Perhaps then more serious politicians would get a chance to lead the country…
History is full of what ifs, except that the disaster of the last 13 years was entirely self inflicted by a colossally stupid major part of the electorate.
Sounds like you're saying the Great Unwashed would never have been able to take us out of the EU.
@@archvaldor Sticking to Tory spending commitments for the first two years was ludicrous- Ken Clarke said he would not have done the same, and he bequeathed Labour a strong economy. Ironies!
Councils are to blame for going bust, they have never cut their cloth to meet their need. Loads of corruption involving certain communities, the usual Labour story.
Nonsense.
What a load of old toot
Get the money from the City of London Corporation's untaxed tax havens that have helped destroy this country.
Greed of Councils that did not want to comply with The Equal Pay Act 1970 and Class Actions are more likely or at least equal culprits.
In Birmingham it has to be the commonwealth games probably the reason Australia and Canada pulled the plug
Its insane what local government gets up to
Thatcher-esc policies are to blame for the root of this issue. Osborne and Cameron, then compounded the problem with the austerity. Finally, the bungaling baffoons of the brexit years drove the final nail in the UK economy coffin. All of this is going to be astronomically difficult to reverse. I suppose one step would be to stop buisnesses keeping all the money for their shareholders, and not investing. The other would be to examine how councils spend their funds; too much money is wasted.
Noam Chomsky had the best explanation of Austerity, paraphrasing a little but he said to understand it you simple need to understand it is just another name for Class War.
I am concerned that Finnancial services will be used to fund our local councils charging high rates of interest. This will then involve charging ordinary working people more in taxes and likely still not provide a high level of service.
Expect the situation to get worse as entitlement continues to soar, working from home means recruitment won't be limited by bricks and mortar and the pensions burden grows.
Bad investments are to blame, Thurrock didn’t invest in its community but for years in a scheme that was found to be corruption lining the pockets of the then leader of its council.
Many of the others invest in vanity projects rather then being responsible and investing the same in community services which are sustainable
We’re paying the historically highest rate of tax now - with everything cut, where is all the money going?
My understanding is Brums council got into financial trouble whon they were under the Tories. I believe this info comes from Phil on 'A Different Bias' if my memory serves me.
Not settling and letting things go to court. Ended up costing them 760million
@@seamuspadraigsanders431 in 2012 that wasnt the slogan. Nice try though
@@seamuspadraigsanders431 Good old Ed Milliband
Consolidate resources and devolve the blame? One could almost think we're gearing up for an election!
On a serious note, it's deeply sad to see councils' dash for yield burn up like that. It materially affects an area and hurts people over generations to then have to recover from these errors, which few had any input in.
''An indictment on the system itself''.
Should have not voted for the lie of austerity don't think you could find one true torie who has a cost of living crisis and they don't care we are the other as far as that mob is concerned 😢
"when you look at Scotland"
"Just look at Scotland"
"Scotland does this thing"
When you media people say these things, you very rarely take into account or mention the Barnett formula. Scotland, NI and Wales get extra money to provide services to their population. The Barnett formula is nonsense and needs to go, even Joel Barnett thought it was stupid and shouldn't have been continued. An independent Scotland would not have that money. It's good that you talk about these things but you should be truthful.
The thing is when people write the media's, they aren't telling the truthful story. Which is half the issue too ! So lots of people are confused etc.
No they would not need that money they would just keep all there money not send to the treasury and get a % back 72million in taxation raised in Scotland last yr and received 36 million back to run Scotland
And I bet you are one of those who are not for Scottish independence either. 😂
Cameron & Osborne in effect raided Local Councils budgets and their was nothing Councils could do.
All Councils have a Constitution and theyre restrained by what they can and cannot do. Yet our national government has no such restraint.
That is why, if we had a written constitution , Councils could have and should have been protected by it.
The relationship is ALL wrong. Local government should be empowered and be in possession of powers that central government simply cannot infringe upon.
The Tories (if you notice) love to demonise local government, ham-stringing Councils who many buy into the narrative the Tories give.
But hey...
You mean to say it wasn"t Brexit"s fault - well I never ?.
Our council keeps putting up car parking prices in town, car parks being one of few assets they have left, yet there’s very little left open in the town worth visiting.
Britain and even the UK as a whole is disunited politically, socially, culturally and linguistically.
The poor political choices and decisions of Brexit have made the lack of unity ever clearer for the entire world to see.
It's not just disunited, it's also completely imbalanced.
Politically, it has devolved governments, but most of the power lies in Tory Westminster which has the UK at political loggerheads. These devolved governments squabble and fight amongst each other which details the disunity.
Brexit was divisive and it shows how disunited the UK is with the occupied region called "Northern Ireland" and the country of Scotland voting No to Brexit.
The UK is literally split down the middle in the Brexit debacle which makes it politically disunited.
Furthermore, the UK isn't a voluntary union because Scotland is actively being denied another independence referendum post Brexit - this, again, makes it a disunited partnership + an imbalanced and undemocratic one.
Welsh and Scottish independence is growing while talks of Irish reunification are on everyone's lips - this, again, demonstrates a disunited and imbalanced union.
Socially, culturally and linguistically it is also divided and disunited as the different parts have their own culture and language.
Brexit itself limits multiculturalism and encourages exclusive nationalism and nativism which in effect breeds racism and xenophobia (the very core of Brexit and Brexiteers).
Great Britain was never united, but instead it's DISUNITED and IMBALANCED as well as UNDEMOCRATIC and UNJUST.
And it's actively breaking up which is the ultimate win 😅
Agreed. But the English, who moan and whine about subsidy junkies from Scotland and Wales taking poor England for every penny, would never allow the UK to be dissolved. Because let us not kid ourselves, the English see the UK/GB as being England, they don't see it as a union of countries and differing cultures, they see Scotland and Wales as conquered territories administered by England for the benefit of England.
The failed economist, George Osborne, has a brand new podcast
You guys are just picking at the carcass of the issue. The big issue is that the UK has £2.3 TRILLION in foreign debt, and is paying £100 BILLION in interest alone every year. That is around £1,500 for every man, woman, and child in the UK. These debts will have to be paid, and fundamentally it will be through higher taxes AND lower expenditure. How and why the UK got into this mess doesn't matter today. The likelihood is that income tax AND council tax will have to go up.
And while we're on this subject, can I just mention that Brexit has been calculated to cost the economy 4-6% in lost GDP, which is calculated at £100 - 150 BILLION in lost GDP. The exchequer could have expected to collect roughly £40-60 BILLION in taxes, which would have gone a LONG way to alleviating this mess.
But no.
So, higher income and council taxes are continuing to be the Brexit benefit. All those Brexiteers, enjoy receiving your tax notices!
🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑
@@seamuspadraigsanders431 Debunked? Aside from your imagination, what reputable independent economists have published their findings, and where can I see that? I won't hold my breath, because every economist I've read so far, including the OBR, have confirmed as stated.
British people have voted for all this four or five times over, if you want to include Brexit. No-one else to blame...
i absolutely love this, no nonsense, fact politics.
I like to know, where is all the money going,every year you pay more tax ,and get less and less for your money,
Social Care, Interest, Inflation.
Councillors pay packets
Is it true that the government even takes fines issued for parking and other traffic offences off the local councils? If so that would explain why there are so few traffic wardens when they are desperately needed.
It could be cdbc and then linked to dept of transportation as in central government money than local government money.
Would that be the same austerity measures that the pre-Corbyn Labour Party enabled by abstaining on every relevant vote rather than voting against them?
By the way, the PWLB is publicly available, and if you think no more than 26 additional councils is heading for s114, think again, or download the PWLB spreadsheet and do the math yourself…..
Derek Hatton and Ken Livingstone showed what Labour-run councils are capable of.
Well said though mention of both is not likely to find favour with the NS. Livingstone is the most significant left wing politician of the last fifty years. Liverpool City Council showed real bravery in defying the Tories in the 1980s.
Blaming austerity is not the entire answer. I worked in data analytics from 2007 and sild a lot into UK licdl authorities. They had hopeless visibility on spend and oricurement data then. Surprise, surprise BCC and Thurrock were on my list of most frustratingly retarded procurement and spend practices.
What software are you promoting
To be fair to Birmingham, the historical equal pay liability is hardly “mis-management”. Big difference from the Tory councils speculating on commercial property with ZERO experience in this
We're gonnansee lots of councils go bust over the next 18 months
You don't see anyone on these councils taking pay cuts,the people at the top are earning more than the prime minister, why can't there jobs be put out to tender
Does anyone in British government know how to budget and invest properly? It's so simple as to be criminal that people can't do it. Where are the consequences for the parties who drive a council into bankruptcy?
Councils are too expensive. just privatise the lot. Let them earn an honest living like everyone else.
No more devolution it hasn’t worked take the power away from these mayors etc.
The government loading more and more onto local councils but providing less and less central funding to provide the services, is why we are where we are now. Not rocket science.
I think it is nuts to trust Labour positions on much given what's happened to most policies so far, I think it is completely ludicrous to trust Keir Stalin on devolution in particular given the treatment/relationship with metro mayors, the way the right wing of the party including Starmer has been running Labour internally, seizing control of CLP's, parachuting in candidates and overriding the will of local members and their communities. Interesting commentry, but that is a lot of context to simply breeze over/skip. I find it hard to believe these pundits aren't aware of that (they mentioned Driscoll, his treatment alone is enough to question Labour on commitment to devolution), but for some reason find it all irrelevant? Austerity chickens coming home to roost, a serious incoming government should be looking to do nothing like it ever again... 😐
Wholeheartedly agree. Making the labour party electable by removing all the lefties from the party? 🤔
Also dealing with antisemitism by removing all the Jewish members?😄
The man is a plonker on a power trip. The sooner he's gone, the better for the party and the country.
Nope. Stupid spending by fools. Austerity, a falling tide, reveals.
What’s needed is a consistent layering of local government. Each layer with distinct responsibilities and tax raising powers so that people actually understand what local government does and can hold their councillors responsible .
We are not dealing with honest actors here and the sooner people realise that, the better.
So if austerity is to blame then elected councillors are free of any obligation to balance their books.
Interesting...
Councils it staff selected oracle should be sacked!
Anyone remember Pickles hack 'n' slash to local council funding from 2010 to 2015? 2010 10%, 2011 8%, 2012,2013 3%
It's no wonder really.
Corruption.
You literally can't go broke by NOT spending money guys, its mathematically impossible for austerity to be to blame. Even this video itself doesn't say its austerity despite the title, but because certain councils refused to accept that they didn't have as much money coming in and kept spending money. In other words, the ones that went broke are the ones that refused accept austerity, which is a reduction in spending, not the ones that implemented it.
Councils are legally and morally obligated to maintain services to protect the lives and limbs of the people within their catchment. These obligations do not conveniently decrease in line with funding, in fact as funding decreases peoples needs become greater as their ability to maintain their independence is compromised.
So Birmingham council had two choices: accept austerity and severely neglect the people they are legally bound to protect or attempt to maintain basic services and risk going bankrupt.
@@laurencedavey3121 There is no legal obligation to have big government with high spending, you are just making that up, and there is an equal moral obligation to be financially responsible and not go bankrupt as to provide various services.
Also you can't maintain your independence by being dependent on government spending.
@@DeanScottWalsh There are legal standards which are set by central government. Local governments have to achieve these, failure means financial penalties decided by Local Government and Social Care Ombudsmen.
A lot of elderly or disabled people are dependent on carers to enable them to stay in their own homes, maintaining as much independence as their life allows. These carers are provided by the council. Without them people's condition deteriorates until they require hospital or care home admission. Care homes are significantly more expensive than carers and are paid for by the council.
Birmingham is relatively poor, lots of demand for adult social care.
@@laurencedavey3121 You are trying to make out that there is no choice but to have high spending. There is a choice. Not every council kept their spending high, and the ones that made cuts needed are now in a better position. You can't just treat your preference as unavoidable and claim we therefore have to do things the way you want.
@@DeanScottWalsh Not all councils have the same income and costs.
We're reaching the end of austerity experiment which has destroyed the conservative party, so I don't think I'm not the one desperately pedalling a broken ideology.
Scotland's council tax system was briefly mentioned as better functioning 💪👍
More examples from other neighbouring countries should be examined, albeit Westminster's "🇬🇧 we know best" attitude supported by a feudal FPTP 🗳️ voting system will result in further discourse 🤔
It is too easy to blame this on Tory austerity - obviously a part of the story, but this country has been doddering on, flogging assets since the end of WW2. Gordon Brown, the self styled saviour of the world in financial system, who entered university at 16 or something flogged off our gold reserves and then our hospitals to trans national finance.
Sane and competent people on the left and right need to come together whilst there is still time to start aright. We don't care about stupid duelling at PMQ's or about Starmer's prowess at 5 a side, or Sunaks taste in shoe leather - we do need to start caring about the plummeting state of the nation
Ir is almost too late
But if both. The councils should spend better to ensure better control over there finances. However this can only be done if you have the funds to do this in the first place which comes from the government
In addition we've got this RAAK thing in buildings. We need divine help.
Btw ...risky subject here..but screw it....Mass transportation of human beings fully arranged and devised by local councils involving Lorry loads ...moving point to point..collecting and dropping throughout the ...erm....UK....
It's not how much money you get it's all about how you spend it. Majority of councils are run inefficiently, the procurement they do is overpriced and a vehicle for private businesses to print money by taking it from the taxpayer without any accountability.
Bristol is run by labour and is falling apart. Projects are run through one body part, are pointless and counter productive most of the time.
Really so none of these wasters have any responsibility. If I mismanage my finances it's no one else's problem but mine. Own it
Perhaps we need to look at the way businessmen are running public resources. We should also look at final salary pensions which means there will always be a shortfall because people are being paid who no longer work. We should look at the salaries of chief executives. Public funding is supposed to be used for services. While women were paid less it seemed no-one saw the writing on the wall. So not only did women get their back dated pay they also got back dated pensions rated to when they gave up work. Money may be going in but the amount of that income going to services has reduced significantly.
There should be 20+ council tax bands and they should be a percentage of taxed income/ wealth. Also, no local authority should have fewer than 500,000 taxpayers and there must be cross-subsidy from councils in Blue Wall areas (yes, even Woking!) to councils in ex-industrial areas.
Austerity is supported by most of the media including those who regard themselves as on the left. That includes the so called centrists who are, in reality, on the right. Austerity is a key component of neoliberalism and its small state agenda. Can't have it both ways- neoliberalism is not pick and mix. It is all or nothing. That is the Faustian pact the public have endorsed since 1979.
It's not the second biggest council in Europe.
You can't just say things that are demonstrably false and then just roll on as if nothing happened.
The young boy has ink on his face 😆
Really informative. Public sector cant win , if they meet budget one year, government gives less next year. They ultimately overspend government says nothing to do with us.This could be a ploy to privatise?
Yep, the government deliberately washed their hands of the situation that quickly escalates
Cameron’s chickens coming home
Cameron & Osborne are to blame (indirectly), Birmingham local labour party are to blame for mishandling a tight budget.
So both tories and labour locally are bad with taxpayers 💸💰💸
Mean how do handle a tight budget with a potential massive payout and 40% 13 years cuts
@@TimesFM4532exactly... that's why I said Cameron & Osborne are the reasons local councils are broke.
It became a Tory council after the local elections took place in 2010. So you you can’t blame Labour for the the ideological austerity that was brought in by central government that cut all centrally funded council budgets. Blame the Tories for the cuts and Tories for the mismanagement.
"Austerity is to blame for councils going bust" is it really? doubt it, it isn't brexit either, it is incompetence, poor management, people that think they know what they are doing but really don't. The public sector is full of them and the private sector is hard on their heels look at thames water. These days there seems little difference between any of the political parties, how on earth did we get to the point of so many people not being able to run a bath.
Absolutely 👍. Left or right makes no difference . Putting anyone in control of multi million pound budgets that have zero experience in managing said budgets is a recipe for disaster . Throwing more money at them just helps them hide their incompetence a little easier . Accountability for incompetence would be a start . NHS included .
Our bins having been emptied now for about 3 weeks. Glasgow. Where our money went then? ^_^
Austerity polices brings... surprise surprise - austerity.
Once you are heavily into debt you have no choices left but to cut expenses and/or raise taxes but why aim for austerity?
Poor people asking for services and to live like humans, how dare they 😂😂😂
How is reducing spending causing bankruptcy? Wasn't the major debt Birmingham council owned due to the payout needed from a equal pay dispute. And the interest rates rise cause this the balloon in cost.
I live in a Tory led council. The numerous cuts by Government have forced everything to be closed or run down. Now the council cannot make any more cuts and to provide the most basic needs will declare bankruptcy.
13 years of Tory rule and Tory councils declaring bankruptcy, you couldn’t make it up
@@neilhedley6080 but council tax hasn't reduced, so how does closing services, thereby reducing costs and maintaining the same revenue through taxation cause bankruptcy?
@@jamescooke6032because the social care budget comes out of CT and it has increased 20%
@@jamescooke6032 Inflation, ie over 10% last year , same revenue going in , outgoing costs increased by 10%. Government funding austerity cuts for local authorities have also had a major impact as council income have been greatly reduced.
@@jamescooke6032 They also get funding from central government, and that has been cut by 50% in real terms since 2010. Their ability to raise taxes to make up the difference is curtailed.
Councils are service providers…period!
Didn’t Birmingham hold the Olympics?rebuilding stadiums etc…
Councils pure and simple
'The love of money is the route of all evil', the banks are to blame... 2008!
Problem with government local or national they get con....
Not enough coming in to what is taken out.
But it's all ok because in the gentlemen's club of Westminster politics, the so-called Labour politician Ed Balls is doing a podcast with the Tory austerity architect, George Osbourne.
Appalling. It is very much a secondary issue, but I find him very poor on GMB. He also talks over co-presenters too.
Both tory and labour led councils have gone bust
Well why did we need austerity ??? Was it not Gordon brown and Tony blurr destroying the country ??? 😂😂😂
Austerity was necessary after Labour spent all of the country’s money. It is then left to the ‘nasty party’ to implement the cuts that are needed to make the councils economically viable. Then the councils gamble their budgets on risky projects and lose. How much did Gordon Brown lose on selling the country’s gold reserves? The system of Diversity, Inclusion and Equality is promoting people to councils and other positions of responsibility when they are not fit for purpose. This deprives competent candidates from the posts. Being inclusive simply means excluding others. We are reaping what we sow by adopting these insane left wing policies.
Economically illiterate. Labour did not spend all of the country's money. The economy was growing when Labour left office in 2010. Austerity does not work. Osborne failed by his own measure to reduce the debt and deficit, missing the targets set. Austerity inhibits economic recovery.
23% of the council tax is used to pay the council worker pensions, it’s is the ridiculous high salaries and the wastage of the inefficient councils that is the man reason for the financial problems that many council have.
but Daily Mail readers will tell you the country is overpopulated that's why services are not working... Go figure...
If you suddenly get a bill for 1 billion pounds you're quite likely to go bust.
Birmingham Council, taxi anyone ........ follow the money
Simple mis-management.
I will say broke councils are a gift for a cost accountant who wants to use cost motivation to get what he wants
I think the British people would actually like their councils gone. They're seen as wasteful expenditure. "Don't take my taxes for what others need".