Why are so many councils going bust? | UK politics | The New Statesman podcast
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- Опубліковано 20 лют 2024
- More councils have gone bust in 2023 than in the 30 years before 2018, with eight effectively declaring bankruptcy since that year.
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But why are councils going bust? Anoosh Chakelian, Britain editor, is joined by policy correspondent Megan Kenyon and Jonny Ball, associate editor of the New Statesman’s policy section, Spotlight, to delve into what’s happening in townhalls across the country.
Read the pieces mentioned in this video.
Jonny's exclusive polling: www.newstatesman.com/spotligh...
Megan's council bankruptcy tracker: www.newstatesman.com/spotligh...
Anoosh's report on Thurrock: www.newstatesman.com/the-week...
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Watch next: Are the Tories corrupt? ua-cam.com/video/TDRY6oK4pts/v-deo.html
TLDR: yes
Are Labour utterly useless? They have been for the 74 years of my life so far.
I'm a Brit living in Eastern Europe, it is no problem at all for the average earner here to afford rent, food and heating. The Tories have inflicted such harm on the British people that former communist Eastern Europe is a more comfortable and easier place to live. Let that sink in.
They have been hit by lots of external pressures it would have happened to any party in power.
@@VincentRE79 but they totally failed in the pandemic, they have failed to subdue inflation and saturation by migration. Any "external pressure" was all totally preventable; for instance, why are we still reliant on Putin's oil? Are we that dumb? We don't know what grid batteries and renewables are? We knew he would use oil to inflate the prices of food and heating as a weapon, we knew and did nothing to try prevent it! People with cancer are waiting to be treated right now, Imagine waiting more than a month for a doctor to tell you what you probably already know and feel, yet you must go through the deliberate chain of delay. The problem is the tories measure success with GPD instead of GDP per capita because they invest in deliberate chaos for the landlords, and ceo's looking to pay no more than 30k for a degree that cost 80. It's collective orchestration of syphoning wealth to the top 1%, or indirectly working for that goal.
@@VincentRE79 Not true at all. You need to do some basic research.
@@DAN420. I guess you are one of the people who believe there are endless sums of money to fund public services?
@@VincentRE79 I guess you’re the type of person who treats their political party like a football team, no matter how corrupt they prove to be. I used to vote conservative, but anyone with any critical thinking skills can clearly see what they have done to this country.
I live in Birmingham. There is a £1million metal bull "art piece" in New Street Station, paid for by a bankrupt council... Hmmm.
Sums councils up perfectly and government department's. Pay a pittance for important things and waste horrendous amounts of money on rubbish. Total incompetence.
How much did that central library cost? £1 billion is it?
There is a company charging £1 million to paint a small bridge in cookham
scrap thats where the money goes
A bankrupt LABOUR council!
Greed and incompetence!
System running perfectly, bankrupt councils, buy up all their assets a cheap prices and then lease them back at double the market rate!
Two words : neo liberalism.
Two words, Bankruptcy Ĺooms
One word, pension
Two words dodgy contracts
@rogermanvell4693 "Two words : neo liberalism." - That's actually one work, to be fair... Though it does have a three-word follow-up: "TOO LATE NOW!"...
its mot too late what was done politically can be undone politically.@@nicadi2005
To state the obvious, the Tories set up the Councils to fail, first with austerity and under funding and secondly by encouraging councils lacking the business acumen to invest in private companies. Who wins? private business which suits Tory ideology. This sucking up of council assets, assets that belong to us really, are gained by the wealthiest thus increasing innequality.These assets then get rented back to us, and are paid by the taxpayer.
🎯
I agree it was politically (deliberately) done by Tories in government for 14 years and one month (I'm still counting). So far tories are still a disaster (this will not change)
Multiculturalism
Irrelevant to the discussion at hand
You mean like the last Labour government, who sold off publicly owned buildings so that we have to rent them back?
****Coughs in 'PFI'****
It’s criminal what this government has done to our country.
No...the government are criminals, but more than half the country are mentally ill and keep voting for the same two political parties over and over.
Thank goodness for all of the hugely successful Labour governments we have had since the war.
@@captaintorch983the best things the country has got - NHS, equal pay, minimum wage etc - came about under Labour. The worst- privatisation, Brexit, end of the social contract, Beeching - were under the Tories.
I'm guessing you do mean England?
All the devolved nations have suffered under a Tory Westminster government.
It's time this disfunctional union ended. Tories have no place in Scotland.
private bankers wrecked the uk in 2008.
there is no means to recover. best to move out.
It would be good to deep dive into Cushman & Wakefield. They seem to have their fingers all over many councils investment strategies. How did a US company manage to be in that position?
Money and dodgy deals i bet
Nerds?! Who doesn't love bit of macroeconomics? Seriously, though, this is an excellent piece; fascinating and, yes, enlightening. I hope it gets seen by more people. It's about the ground-floor, fundamental state of the country and the way central government has absolved itself of the responsibility for basic services and their funding. Thank you all.
I was thinkin the same 😊
As an example, more than 50% of my council tax is spent on adult social care. The percentage increases every year by about the same as the annual increase in council tax.
1.5% is spent on infrastructure maintenance. We could double the maintenance budget, fix everything, and barely anyone would notice the increased cost.
This is an unsustainable social model where we are not investing in our children.
Maybe if the G0V actually did the job they get paid for and spent OUR money on this country, instead of sending billions abroad fighting for other countries
When people here are struggling to feed themselves, People wouldn't be in destitution they wouldn't need help ♥️
Yeah. We are paying to look after disabled foreigners. Giving them mobility cars house benefits. They should go home for their care. Not our problem.
Most of that adult social care allowance is paying for taxis, FYI.
@@X420Niko I'm not surprised. Either that or mostly paying for people to blat around the countryside paying a 10 minute visit to someone in an entirely unsuitable freezing cold house to check they're not dead.
The money spent on adult social care *does not* go into the pockets of disabled people, or make their lives better. So, let's be careful not to spread hate to individual disabled adults. Most of that money will go on agency staff, buildings, taxis and crippling contracts for services that aren't always needed, even for empty buildings.
Exactly the same is happening with children in care. Kids are being nagged into mental health care and counselling because the service is paid for upfront wether they use it or not. Residential units get paid professional rates for "teaching services" (letting the kids sleep or watch Netflix) if they refuse to go to school. The business model for all these companies is the same. If the council are paying, load up the costs for offering services. Building maintenance contracts are the biggest scam because they set costs at the maximum that might be needed. The council aren't paying the actual cost for work that has been done in reality . A ten year contract @30k a year for cutting a school's grass, even if the sports field is flooding and the grass can't grow. The Councils never have anything tangible to show for this kind of spending. They're just left with the "asset" of a building that probably has problems with RAAC or dangerous cladding.
Social care and education should have entirely separate budgets that are funded centrally. Council tax should then only be used for the provision of what people expect local councils to do (highways, parks, libraries etc.)
The numbers are already broadly in line as currently only 25% of council budgets come from local council tax, which is broadly the proportion that is spent on council services minus education and social care.
By separating these budgets it would force central government to properly review the cost of education and care and fund properly, rather than forcing councils to cut discretionary services further. At the rate we're going it wont be long until councils are completely hollowed out with nothing left to cut or sell off (and yet the social care bill will still require more money).
Corruption.
I don’t understand why the host and guests were laughing when talking about the millions being wasted. This is the problem in the UK, people laugh at how bad things are when instead they should be angry and get out on the streets to protest. Sad to watch really.
I'm assuming this is a Tory channel, and knowing how the Tories have squandered billions- they're making light of the subject.
@@taykitrleevitt4314no, this is a left-leaning channel, just like the New Statesman. They laugh because that is the British way of making light of problems.
Probably not feeling the pinch. I feel more like crying than laughing.
@@edmundblackaddercoc8522they all sound middle class.
@@taykitrleevitt4314 Yes, it’s a tory channel. Everything mainstream is tory. It has to be; it’s biased towards capitalism and doesn’t care about the plight of people and environment in real terms. Any “socialism” here is just window-dressing.
Am I right in thinking that in 2010, while things weren't perfect the country basically worked? Since then we've had 13+ years of trying to run a 21st century country on 19th century principles & NOTHING has been properly funded. As a result nothing works.
It’s not been funded because the country has been living beyond its means for donkeys years hence the trillion £ debt. People’s expectations haven’t adjusted to the reality of much lower living standards for all.
@@gobby2347 The Conservative government tripled the national debt. It now sits at £3 trillion, so austerity and cuts did not reduce the debt burden it made is far worse. The annual interest payment are on a par with the combined spending on education and defence, as a proportion of economic activity its the highest since late 1940s.
yeBButnObuT brOwn cAused The Crash wEn He Sell'd All hE GoLd ReMeMbeR that noTe iNNit.
@@gobby2347Agreed.
@@chrisreed5463two sensible posts at the top of this thread. Makes me nostalgic about discussion on the net before everything was point scoring. Right on cue someone jumps in about austerity or some nonsense.
English Councils started going bust after the Audit Commission /AC was abolished in 2014. The idea was to pay the private sector to audit local government instead of the AC, ie redirecting public money to big city of London auditing firms. Once the AC disappeared councils were free to pursue madcap investment schemes, hence these bankruptcies. The Audit Commission role survived north of the border with Audit Scotland and no councils have been bankrupted - yet. It will probably happen, but at least Scottish local government avoided the mad investment schemes that the abolition of the Audit Commission encouraged. The Audit Commission policed councils well e.g. uncovering fraud in Tory Westinster Council in the 1980s. Once it went, English councils lost the plot.
The contempt the British public should hold the conservative government in should be endless
Step 1: Rent control (limit rent increases per year based on BoE or RPI etc.)
Step 2: Landlords to pay council tax.
Brilliant, so then all the landlords would sell, and homelessness would skyrocket.
Step 3. Landlords sell up.
@@alejandropalazonurtubi3520 Not if the properties are bought back via compulsory purchase orders at fair prices. Landlords who are greedy and want sky high profits should sell, that can only benefit us.
Incredibly wealthy people are shifting their assets to offshore tax havens or buying properties at an alarming rate, gearing up to use these properties as a means of leverage for when they start reshoring manufacturing with the aim of creating the same working conditions for their workers in this country as they have grown accustomed to abroad.
Compulsory purchase order. Buy the assets at a fair price and nationalise the industries.
Exactly correct.
All deliberate and by design!
Most people think that Councils are there to provide facilities such as Swimming Pools and Libraries, provide good Schools and affordable Houses, fix Potholes, clean up Litter, maintain Parks etc. in other words to make sure their Communities are safe and good places to live. No one thinks of Social Care and no one really understands how expensive Social Services are. These Services fit more with Health Services and should be totally separate from Councils, they need to be funded separately by Central Government so Councils can afford to do the things for Communities that people who pay Council Tax expect for their money.
Spot On (retired District Nurse here). “Social Care” should not be managed separately from nursing care. It leads to an absolute headache for community nurses and social workers, both arguing over who pays for what! Are the client’s needs predominantly nursing needs or social care needs? Absolutely ridiculous! The result is that the client is left stranded in a hospital bed somewhere while their community care is delayed..
The burden of Social Care needs to be taken off councils immediately. It belongs within the NHS at the Primary Care Trust level.
1, councils were underfunded
2, councils were told make dodgy investments in property with low interest rates
3, intrest rates went up, proprty values went down
4, more tasks were moved from central government to the councils
5, poor control of long term expenses
Thank you for attending my ted talk.
I am a District Councillor and we passed next years budget but only by using reserves. We cannot do that again. Our services are already cut to the bone but we have to cut more and charge more for services.
What you ignore is the Council Fair revenue study and business rates growth reset, neither has been done since 2013 and is part of the cause of the issue.
But local government finance needs root and branch reform. It is about 40 years overdue.
inb4 "Yebbut you spend it all on LGBTQWZ+- facilitators innit"
What do you mean by the CF revenue study?
You can’t keep putting up business rates in a recession. We’ve been in recession since 2008 effectively. Same goes for council tax.
@@mark4lev They can and will. Central government funding for local government has been cut by 40% in last 10 years.
@@VincentRE79 More accurately they have to. But if Councils were allowed control over the Business Rates in their areas this problem would be solved. In my district the lions share of business rates stays with the government.
Of course they would need to tax the wealthy (not income but assets of those with a certain level of wealth) to make up the difference and still some councils would be poor because of the way economics has decimated businesses unequally across the country.
This is what you get under the tenure of a conservative government for the last 14 years!! What an amazing legacy!!
Labour will be just as bad
@@user-lh4rn7en5l No one can be as bad as the current Conservative party!!
@@samgould288 Wait and see what happens with Labour when they get elected. They're going to hit the same basic problem.
As George Galloway said they're both cheeks of the same arse. 😅
Your comment at 8:44 - ‘private investors have done quite well out of it, and you’ve got a broke town’ perfectly sums up what the tories have done to the entire country.
The tories and their mates have done well, the rest of the country is destitute.
We need urgent change of government to get us back to square one.
I'm sure you are right, but could you please remind me which Labour governments have taken us back to square one?
The university of York found that in the first 4 years of Cameron over 55,000 deaths occurred due to a direct result of unnecessary austerity published in the BMJ, this needs addressing especially as Cameron is back advising government and should not be ignored,
Please present the evidence for this.
My question is - where is the bailout money going to come from? Seems like we’re backed into a corner here.
Anoosh is the best! She is tops and simply amazing. ❤🎉😊
Megan seemed a bit nervous in the beginning but I thought she did well too :)
@@fang_xianfuTrue, but I am in love with Anoosh, so I am biased. ❤🎉😊
Bullshit! Council tax has gone up time and time again not for less services for no services, where the hell has the money gone ?
Birmingham is Labour run and has a lot of mooselims running it, you do the maths.
Adult social care
@@J1M1F Hardly surprising when a government destroy your country then take the piss expecting you to fight for them. Enough to make anyone nuts
Immigration is a major problem, each council has thousands of migrants to find accommodation for and pay for that accommodation.
The war on private landlords hasn't helped as thousands of them are selling up to get hassle free 5 percent interest from the building society.
Who is responsible for those mistakes, the government obviously.
I work for local council and we have a major problem in management.
There are simply way too many of them and they are mostly incompetent.
These low calibre managers increase work place stress,decrease productivity and support ridiculous,expensive ideas.
The councils need to decrease the amount of bogus managers in favour of employing the workers who actually do the jobs on the ground or we will continue wasting the budget.
Council workers lost 25% of there wage in the last 15 years so it’s definitely not because we are overpaid
What you're experiencing is happening in the NHS and the military. Management is totally unable to do the job they are employed to do. Their solution is to bring in another layer of management and so it goes on and on
Too many middle managers and consultants, and not enough people who make an actual difference i.e. front line workers such as doctors, nurses, soldiers, carers etc.
This is exactly the issue raised by Mariana Mazzucato so I suggest you watch a few of her videos. For many years various Central Government policy decisions to move to more and more private companies carrying out the work, have caused the best people in management and senior positions in county councils, district councils and borough councils to move to the private sector. This was not only about money but the quality of the jobs on offer. This resulted in those that could not easily move being left in charge. This created a downward cycle that has now reached a serious low. Then Central Government asks these councils to start to become developers, investors, etc and they simply don’t have the expertise in these areas to make the correct decisions. Having worked in procurement all my working life it’s clear that the contracts they enter into are so poor it’s crazy. Then we have to understand that this applies to the officers, they are “managed” by the councillors, who from my experience are just people from the community who often have no knowledge of business, pressuring these officers to make poor decisions. It’s a total recipe for disaster. I’ve been involved with councils over my working life on various projects and the quality of their management leaves a lot to be desired, so much so I refused to work on any more projects where I had to directly engage with councils. This has been going on for many years now but has got significantly worse over the last 15 years. Central Government has now deliberately reduced the quality of management of the Civil Service so there is less push back against idiotically driven policies. This is going to take many years to unravel if it’s even possible.
Why are people not being held to account for this incompetence? People don't just need to be sacked but even arrested.
Give Cameron, Johnson, Truss and Sunak criminal records - just like Trump.
The irony of DEI being introduced by local government in this environment is mind blowing.
This is what happens when people commit fraud across the board, people find loopholes holes to avoid council tax and money gets embezzled and secretly stashed away in ghost pension pots.
Why do community charge levels stop part way up the property value scale? Also, as its linked to property values this has the effect of keeping the money in the rich areas who need it least. Funding should relate to populations' needs not their wealth.
Because they have had their budget destroyed by austerity for 13 years .
More like giving contracts out to friends and families for massive amounts
, doing jobs on the cheap then skimming and sharing the lions share.
Yet another manifestation of Tory government incompetence and complacency. The funding model for LAs is broken and needs a complete rethink. They are short-changed by central government, handed down more and more responsibility and then castigated when they can’t financially manage.
There is no money…
@@Cassp0nk Funny how there's 'no money', yet we can afford to waster £37billion on a test and trace app that never fully worked, or waste a £1billion on buying faulty PPE which is fit only for the incinerator, building two aircraft carriers with no aircraft to use them, etc, etc.
I'm sick of hearing this excuse. It's not that there's 'no money', it's a toxic mix of incompetence and corruption. The sooner we admit that Britain is not immune to corruption, the sooner we can start to claw some of that money back (or start prosecuting, though that's more wishful thinking).
It's like the 12-step approach to alcoholism - the first step is admitting you have a problem. We're not even at that point yet.
Please list all of the fantastically competent Labour governments we have had!
Tony Blair's?
@@captaintorch983Tony Blairs was tory lite not labour.
@@captaintorch983Typical 'what about' response. You honestly think people are still gonna fall for these deflection tactics? 😂
Risible that the Chancellor has said they have 15billion in unspent taxes and are talking about tax cuts before the Election. Isn't it more sensible to share that out amongst Councils instead? Though of course they won't because they're vainly hoping tax cuts might mean they get re-elected... fat chance.
They could ring fence this money for social care only, then distribute to the councils according to local population demographics.
@@Ben-jq5oo They could do a lot of things, if their aim is to ease people's struggles right now, but that's not their aim, is it.
£15bn isn’t a lot, that’s 3 years cost of housing asylum seekers at the current number.
I watched the council pretend to do roads works last week. They are literally digging holes and pretending to do pipe work. It's amazing what you witness waiting at red lights for 30 minutes.
All the workers on their phones. Pathetic.
the UK is unattracive for investment - this isnt a problem that can be fixed slowly like Labour is planning. all this will do is sustain the UK as an unattractive prospect for longer. the correct approach would be to really push central gvt money into the regions (and london) locally to bring services up to a globally competitive standard so that investors can begin to trust that their companies and workers will be sufficiently supported.
In a matter of weeks I heard two seperate, lets call them chav mums, bragging about how they forced the council to pay for their "autistic son" to go to private school because the state school couldnt deal with her son.
Average cost per child = £52,000 per year.
Let that sink in. Those two kids were costing tax payers £104,000 per year.
Average spend for "special need kids" in total per year = £480 million.
They stuck up for their children. Why call them chav mums? Everyone knows that there is a backlog on help for Autistim/ ADHD because the pushy middle classes are sucking up all the funding by paying to get their kids assessed more quickly. Sounds like you don't mind at all if working class kids get labelled as thick and lazy because that keeps them in their place!
I clean the streets, i didn't cause this. Where i work a supervisor stole 100,000 pounds. I want to go home 10 minutes early . . .NO CHANCE!
Absolutely right. Integrity and competence mean more to working people because they have to live in the community and face those who are being left behind.
Council tax goes up yet bin collection cut to twice a month. Remember when they came every week?
There were less old people about back then. Social care is very expensive for councils.
@@ahdhudbbhThat’s the most relevant and sensible comment I've read under this video.
Eu landfill tax 1993. That’s where it started. Punishing council’s for not hitting recycling rates
Councils have priorities and should not deviate from those priority responsibilities. Taking on any other responsibility should be deemed as a waste of TAX PAYERS MONEY. It now seems that councils, in their current format, are NO LONGER FIT FOR PURPOSE.
You can blame funding if you like.
But maybe councillors paying themselves 500k a year (more than MPs)
Goes to show the attitude towards taxpayer money.
What council is that?
Wow referring to Oracle as "a rubbish IT system" rather libellous comment indeed. Oracle has been around a long time, and for good reason. I have been involved in transitioning accounting systems and MRP's over the years (it has to be said also, not every new system can cover 100% of your requirements and add on systems are required, especially for HR Payroll), In most cases problems arise from those involved in the transition, along with maybe buying a system not truly appropriate. (ask your self the question, what other systems other councils are using?) it appears there were "legacy" issues from going from old to new in this case at Birmingham council, and some senior staff have resigned, the question had been asked if the system was ever needed in the first place. With PWC involved now, at least you will get to the bottom of this, with a massive bill. Generally speaking there are way too many people at top tier in council that would not cut it in the real world. They really do need external forces like PWC to basically sign off on expenditure.
Unless I have missed something here in France council taxes and business rates are kept at a local level and spent every year. In our commune of around 2000 people they have a budget 6 million euros per year.
Yeah but you lot are a bit too lefty for our liking. that's why we voted Brexit ya see 😵💫
Yes but responsibilities (and financial burden) are spread between the regions, the departments and the communes. For example:
- public transportation is under the region jurisdiction as are the "lycées",...
- allocations for children, old people and disabled people are under the department jurisdiction as are the "collèges",...
- the seniors homes are under the commune juridiction as are the daycares and the kindergarten (the buildings, not the salaries),...
Everyone pays 3k in rates?
@@blazzz13 ANd wOt aBouT aLL thE VaT wE stIll pAy iNNit.
@@TheLucanicLord I pay 940€ for three properties.
Huge amounts of money spent by councils goes on adult or child social care. In a unit where I work there are multiple children with severe challenging behaviour who have been dumped in this country by their parents who are from Saudi Arabia and the like. It costs over 1000 a day to provide for him. We have to pay that as citizens. Our services being used by people who have paid not one penny into our country or system. Like the 7 billion a year spent on young economic dinghy hoppers who will be prioritized for housing because the cost of keeping them in 4 star hotels in the future is prohibitive. Pure stupidity and insanity of mismanagement and atrocious decision and policy making
It’s now likely Birmingham council will increase council tax by 21% in addition to cutting services like rubbish collections down to only once every two weeks. I’m honestly so sick and angry at how the average person has to pay for the disgusting mismanagement of funds and for other peoples pay packet. While I have sympathy for the people who didn’t get equal pay, the people of Birmingham should not be having to pay for the councils own ineptitude but that is exactly what’s happening. Birmingham council also made dumb changes like bike lanes and moving the coach station which was a massive waste of funds. The situation is only going to get worse. I have no sympathy for people losing their jobs - in my eye, it’s a council full of incompetent people.
Perhaps you should learn more about what Birmingham is up against. Birmingham's funding dropped by 41 percent per person between 2010 and 2010. And why is that? Councils overall across the UK have seen billions in cuts in support from central government, £15 billion a year's worth, far more than the increases in council tax and business rates. This support that has been cut, Revenue Support Grant, was the Thatcher government's version of leveling up, and it was sustained over the next quarter century so as to support local government in those areas that needed it the most. The Conservative/Liberal coalition from 2010 on kicked that away. www.birmingham.ac.uk/documents/college-social-sciences/business/research/wm-redi/wm-redi-project-docs/insights-into-birmingham-city-councils-spending-power.pdf
I work for a LA…under an incompetent manager, incapable of delivering what the public need or keep the staff safe. Get rid of dead wood and there will be savings.
Having worked in Local Government for a few years to the end of 2008 (just before LGR in Cheshire) and having lived in a number of places on your 'watch list' (Nottingham and Bournemouth) I am quite horrified at the decline in funding for local authorities in the UK and the never ending increase in demand for statutory services. I guess this crisis will explain why, on a visit last year, we felt that so many parts of the UK looked unkept and not properly maintained or looked after - we now live in New Zealand. Here the big challenge for local government seems to be mostly around infrastructure maintenance and replacement, water and drainage assets in particular as the old pipes, etc are reaching the end of their useful lives... again, we have a property based rating system for local government funding, which as you know is less than ideal... there always seems to be a tension between local and national responsibility for service delivery and how that is funded...
Your average council couldn't run a bath.
Some are far too busy spending our hard-earned money, without consent, on things that we don't want or need. Let's have some transparency and decency when spending other people's money shall we!
Where did the money go? Somebody's got it.
Does anyone know whether there is a map as mentioned in the video including a history of the level of the tax cuts that were implemented by the government over a time?
Certainly isn't from filling too many potholes. 😂
An excellent and enlightening discussion. All our government bodies whether it's central or local have progressively gone ' bad'. I think that the councils that looking in a desperate state will accelerate. A very sorry state of affairs.
More funding needs to be put into councils
Agreed. But also, it seems councils need to stop blowing money on grand entrepreneurial projects.
so left-wing councils can waste EVEN MORE government money on stupid ,unwanted projects ??
@@andybrice2711the number of councils that did is tiny, but also they were basically forced to as they need income, and wanted to leverage their assets. Now the government is telling councils to sell assets, that ultimately means that they need to rent buildings to provide services rather than providing from buildings they own, a short term cashing in followed by higher costs for ever
Why not a system where Councils are free to raise their own revenues - raise local taxes?
@@charlesbruggmann7909 Within reason, yes. I think if we're expecting councils to provide so many services, they should also have more control over taxes.
Though also, councils should probably get a higher flat per-person budget. Otherwise rich areas will get richer, and poor areas poorer.
the waste and mismanagement has as much to do with this as the cutting of national government subsides ,vanity projects, stupid investments ,poor housekeeping etc etc political wrangling ,blame calling ,promoting executives and managers well above their intelligence quota .Computerisation is the best example of this not only in local government but also in national government
The councils should take those companies to court.
Council going bust all over & adult social care is first to be cut…. But all this apparently is amusing and should induces constant giggles and chuckles, why ?
As a back bencher on Bath and North East Somerset Council, I thought you covered this topic fantastically. We have just approved our budget and there is the air amongst the public and media that CTax going up again by 4.99% (excluding fire and rescue, police and any parish precepts) is inevitable, despite the Chancellor mooting income tax and NI cuts. In our case the Third Sector are being affected but we are managing this by reviewing our contracts with them and the crucial services they provide that we can’t.
We’re at the highest taxation level for 70 years. There is no magic money tree, so what do people suggest we stop doing or cut to fund increasing ‘social care costs’. There are trade off’s and hard choices ahead. The state can’t do everything for everyone and we’re already doing more than we can afford. Waste, inefficiency and incompetence within local government would be a good start.
This idea that there is no magic money tree started by Thatcher is simply not true. In the UK it’s called the Bank of England. Every country with such a central bank has the ability to create and loan money to the Government. During Covid lockdown the Government obtained £700 billion from the Bank of England. The question is where has this money ended up. Do you have it? Obviously injecting such large sums of money into the economy don’t come without consequences so it’s very important where this money goes and what it’s used for, unfortunately the government didn’t seem to understand this basic economics or did they and deliberately set it up so the richest in the country ended up with this money.
Thanks for this, Anoosh. Very illuminating. Solutions to follow next week ??
What they do debate is how they are not funded enough, what they don't address in this debate it seems to me is how councils are killing their own services by over taxing businesses and households and not utilizing their assets enough to generate an income. Often, they provide services people don't want and waste money on small projects that benefit few people disproportionally take up large parts of their budget. Corruption as well. Councils up and down the country are often out of touch. People want essential services first, that is the priority anything on top is generally not wanted.
Spending more money than they receive! Same as us all……..
Basically the Government gave the local councils leeway to make longer term investments, then pulled the rug out from under them by slashing funding, so they had to pull out of these investments early at a loss!
No-one at the New Statesman saying this, surprise surprise!
How is a future Labour govt who believe in more social services going to make this in anyway better. Its just going to suck up more money and us the taxpayer will be hammered even further.
When taxes are at the highest for 70 years and we still cannot finance councils fully WTF IS GOING ON. WHERE IS THE MONEY GOING? Net zero is now taking billions out of the system. £4 billion is allocated to eco grants for heat pumps and solar panels both of which are questionable . Other finance will no doubt be going south. rather than essential established institutions.
The majority of funds go towards social care. If you have a larger population of immigrants who have never paid in have no assets but expect the same standards of living then the costs will outweigh the income. There are also views that certain populations from other countries historically marry relatives therefore have more SEN children and work in the black market therefore pay no tax
Excellent podcast! Highlights the failing politics that really affects people's lives on a day to day basis
Kcc conservative council, has just closed the last council funded care home in our area and not replaced services. How is that fulfilling their statutory obligations?
3 billion for the population of birmingham seems alot but that is only 2600 a person. For all the services you expect of the council that is nothing!
i hear council going on debt 😭..where is the council tax we paid ?
Anyone who has ever voted Tory - this is on you .
Yeah, democracy, who needs it?
Corruption
Nottingham and Birmingham are labour run .... 😂
Labour and Liberals are no different.
Easy to waste money when it's not yours and you aren't held accountable
What happened to Somerset CC? It was giving warnings about its fiscal problems, but then matters went quiet.
It's still fcuk'd, trying to fill a £300m hole by switching to 2nd class mail, sacking staff and selling of the last of their assets like theatres.
As for why they are quiet, the CFO is obliged to report around November time. Which they did. They aren't required to run around like chicken little, every day.
It's Somerset Council now - the county council and district councils were replaced by a new unitary last year. Just past its budget but is likely to got bust within 12 months
@@DanielMumbyoh 😳
@@HShango I am the local democracy reporter for Somerset and have written on this extensively. Look me up :)
Check your local council to see if they had LOBO loans, taken out by councils over decades at hideous interest rates. This is where your money is going.
Yet the taxes just keep going up !
its because we are English with a stiff upper lip .
If re-valued housing, people,rates would double overnight, sure way to get you thrown out of office,
How much council tax does a council like Birmingham give to the "consolidation fund" and how much do they receive back from the government ?
Always interesting to go through the Councils invoices each month to see what they’ve spent and on what, would be even better if they allowed all invoices to be declared, should be nothing hidden from the local public.
That’s what happens when you let thousands of people into the country too quick. It puts stress on all the services but no one’s got the balls to talk about it.
Birmingham Council need to follow the Post Office brilliant approach to a failing I.T. system.
the councils are rich enough .as an housing officer told me , 1 million budget on housing ,yet the council reluctant ,refuse to upgrade their derelict properties .a third world has better insulation on their properties ..
All councils must return to what they are actually there to do. Run basic services and no more. They have more staff than necessary and occupy more office space than required.
Government as a entire entity has grown unnecessarily big.
Best get used to having less. No political party can fix this. Councils should focus on primary needs.
It is horrifying to see this country slowly falling apart and Councils desperately cutting back and trying to sell anything they can but what is the solution? do we have the money but the Government is not passing it down, are we expecting too much from the local services or is it as simple as we need a huge Tax increase to afford all these services? And is does seem that a few Councils are maybe a little too fond of big tent ideas/corruption.
well if they stopped wasting money on stupid clean air initiatives, bike lanes,art galleries....oh and Mayors.......they are a waste of money as well
Corruption and inept management.
You only have to drive anywhere and notice the sheer waste. 4 highways vans ( 2 of which are parked up with the occupants on the phone all day) 4,000 traffic cones and all for a couple of blokes digging a hole on the pavement. You couldn’t make it up😩😩
'Buckingham Palace ', well, its about time all those royal properties were taxed at commercial rates.
Did I just hear the term "unlawful spending"?
As in against the law?
Is anyone going to jail for that?
What happens to YOU if your income goes down if you keep spending at the rate you have been spending?
You eventually run out of money.
It's the same with councils.
The difference is that if YOU do it you can't just stick your hand in other people's pocket.
Badly managed as they are taking enough council tax from us 🤷♂️
If the government stopped giving our money away to fund wars they could have distributed to Councils to help local services, local people. Politicians get richer while we get poorer. Investigations need to be made into what these councillors are spending our money on….
Order out of chaos.
The greed and incompetence of the Tory government is just mind boggling.
my mum on a pension in liverpool has had her council tax increased by a 1/4 and now payinjg the price of a mortgage a month disgusting,
They need additional funds from Westminster. Especially in housing, the levels of street homeless in the UK is heartbreaking 💔
Very interesting, thanks.
Can Labour solve this without spending more money? No. Will Labour spend more money on this? No. Two questions and answers that apply to most of the issues faced in the UK.
Seems like the chickens have come home to roost here. Cant increase taxes…can’t cut services…and can’t print money.
@@tau-ceti they could increase tax revenues by billions if they wanted, they can borrow too but they won't
@@Mantastic-ho3vm they can solve it without spending? I'm all ears
@@Wulfuswulferson You mean with a wealth tax? I'm all for that...but who can see that happening?