Months of hard work goes into setting the budget of Durham County Council – Councillor Alan Napier, Durham County Council Deputy Leader.
Paramount importance is placed on maintaining services and ensuring our council’s financial stability. Not easy when we’re managing incessant cuts by a Government fixated on making life hard for our communities.
I was honest at Cabinet, Full Council and I will be honest in this blog – getting the right balance is difficult. Just as it is difficult to explain the scale of the cuts we continue to face. This Government takes no account of the impact of its actions.
Some make light of the cuts forced upon us, but the figures don’t lie:
- At the end of this financial year, we will deliver savings of £186m
- By 2019/20, total savings forced on us will be almost a quarter of a billion pounds
These figures are not fabricated. They are the truth behind the Tory approach to funding councils in areas that rely on Government support.
We are forced into these savings as a direct result of Government funding cuts. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise. It is a national disgrace and something the 1980s Tory Government could only dream of.
But deal with it we must. We are planning a way through imposed austerity that has the least impact on County Durham. We have been doing it since 2010 and continue to do.
For 2017/18 we will again protect frontline services. The more money cut each year, the more difficult it becomes. The forecast savings for 2017/18 are £36m – a staggering sum.
We will use £12.6m from our support reserve to help deliver the budget, protecting services for as long as possible. Without our prudent approach to financial planning we would not be able to use reserves in these increasingly challenging times.
Labour comes under increasing pressure to use our reserves, year after year. Had we bowed to this pressure in the past, we would be in a far worse position today.
We always look to the future, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult. We must use all of our financial resilience to plan a way through imposed austerity. Over the Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) we still must finding savings of £36m between 2018-20.
Saving money while County Durham faces so many pressures is hard. Labour leads a balanced approach to achieve savings and maintains a prudent reserves strategy to help us through the medium term.
In line with our MTFP, we propose a council tax increase of 1.99% for 2017/18.
This Government’s is pushing the cost of public services onto local taxpayers – evidenced through the introduction of the Adult Social Care Precept.
We considered the option to charge a 3% Adult Social Care Precept in 17/18 to meet the increasing cost of social care. Like most councils, we have no option but to charge. Costs rise, the Government cuts and we are told to pass the costs on to local people. But we will not charge 3% in 2017/18 – we will maintain the 2% we set out in our plans.
People are struggling and we will use our limited flexibility to keep this charge at 2%, despite Government trying to force further costs to taxpayers.
To put this into context, look at the debacle in the Tory heartland of Surrey, where a council tax increase of 15% was proposed…and then withdrawn. This says everything about the state of public finances, Surrey get £12.2m in transition grant while we receive nothing.
Surrey has a 0.1% reduction in spending. We have 1.2%. For every 1% increase in council tax, Surrey raises almost £7m. It’s £2m for us. Draw your own conclusions…but it’s clearly unfair.
Despite everything, we maintain our council tax reduction scheme. Like everything else, Government has cut funding for this scheme each year and left councils to work out how to protect people. Any changes to this scheme will hit those that rely on it hard. I am proud and saddened that we are among a handful of councils retaining the scheme in its original form.
We have been prudent with a balanced and funded capital programme and will continue to invest in schemes delivering huge positive change. We will invest in schools, highways and regeneration, securing the best futures for our young people and providing new jobs across the county.
On top of all other pressures, we also have to set our budgets without clarification of the final Government settlement numbers – this is unacceptable.
I thank members and officers for their work on this budget and MTFP. It is not easy – but Labour is here to serve our residents, delivering a budget for County Durham with the minimum of impact on services.