First published in the Guardian Tuesday 21st August 2018
Far from ‘smashing up the public sector’, we’re trying to provide services in the face of austerity
Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty has vividly described “pulverism” – the idea that councils should use financial crises not merely to make savings but to smash up and reshape the public sector – and claims it has gone nationwide.
No it hasn’t, at least not in my experience of working in all kinds of councils around the country over the past decade.
Most councils, far from being ideological about smashing up the public sector, have been trying their best to mitigate the impact of the ideology and policies of austerity that successive governments have put in place since the coalition introduced the first round of cuts in 2010.
There has been a clear and deliberate ambition by the Conservatives to reduce the size of the public sector and blame the national economic crisis on public spending, with local authorities bearing the brunt of the cuts. Spending on neighbourhood services, such as bins, planning, potholes and leisure, for instance, fell by more than £3bn between 2012 and 2017.
David Cameron’s “big society” idea, which is being revived, was an explicit attempt to shift responsibility for essential services to communities, the voluntary sector and individuals. And it was clear to anyone who worked in local government that Eric Pickles, communities and local government secretary from 2010 to 2015, had nothing but contempt for councils. He continually put councils in no-win situations with diktats about weekly bin collections (for no good reason, as many councils had legitimately found ways of saving money by reducing weekly collections, in consultation with residents) while slashing their core funding and refusing to allow them to increase council tax.
Most councils reacted sensibly to all this. They assessed what they legally had to provide and what was most important to residents. They looked at the benefits of their discretionary services and the impact of cutting them. And they looked at how to run things differently internallywithout affecting frontline services.
These impact assessments were provided so councillors could make hard decisions on cuts. Some councils then decided to cut services such as libraries as a way of saving money without putting vulnerable people at risk.
But the biggest mistake a lot of councils made wasn’t outsourcing services or paying consultants to help find ways to work more efficiently – it was cutting preventive services.
The biggest issue for most councils is the continual rise in demand for housing and social services. Prevention and early intervention are key to managing demand, but many councils cut these services to focus on protecting acute services. This is not the most effective use of resources.
Nonetheless, even in councils under Conservative control, the main consideration has been safeguarding vulnerable people and trying to mitigate the impact of austerity on local communities, not ideologically following the Barnet “easyCouncil” model. This model didn’t make it far beyond a handful of councils because it quickly became apparent that it was not the solution it promised to be.
Most councils have tried to be pragmatic. Hammersmith and Fulham, for instance, has a long record of keeping council tax low and even freezing it, while continuing to provide frontline services – despite its government grant being slashed by £66m since 2010. Barking and Dagenham council announced in March that it will deliver 50,000 homes by 2035, having already committed £350m to improving council stock. And councils continue to deliver social care services competently despite the cuts, according to a recent report by thinktank Localis, which shows most users of adult social care remain satisfied with their care and support.
But the bottom line is that 10 years of austerity and two years of focusing on Brexit have left local government on the ropes.
The rebalancing of the UK economy to ensure “a truly national recovery”, which the government has been talking about since the July 2015 budget, has failed to materialise. Councils face a funding black hole of more than £5bn by the end of the decade and it’s still unclear how they will be funded beyond 2019-20.
It seems government is determined to continue to accuse councils of financial mismanagement, even where it is demonstrably untrue. The real impact of cuts can be seen in places such as East Sussex, a well-run council that feels it has no other option than to reduce services to the bare minimum.
If councils really are being pulverised, the blame lies firmly at the door of central government. We need a complete rethink of the way councils are funded. And we need to stop blaming local government for the ideological fixations of Conservative central government.
LocalGov Insight 