Local Government consultant, Jeff Jones and the Welsh Local Government Association join forces in this morning’s Western Mail to argue that Welsh councils are facing their worst financial crisis since the 1930s and will be forced both to make cuts and hike service charges:
“My view when I was a councillor in the 1980s was it was tough, but I still believe that local government is facing its toughest crisis it has ever faced since the 1930s.
“It isn’t just cuts in money from central government, there’s a lessening income from investments.
“They’re not getting the money they thought they were getting from the price of land.
“Government thinking was you were basically going to have capital receipts to finance capital expenditure. Talk to anybody regarding land values and they’re half the price they were two years ago.
“It is a very bleak scenario. I think some councils understand this and councils like Cardiff are already putting it out into the public domain.”
Some councillors, particular among the newer breed, were “in denial” about the levels of cuts which were needed to tackle the financial crisis, Mr Jones said.
“The problem is that we were battle-hardened by the 1980s,” he said.
“It’s very difficult for somebody elected in 2004 who now finds themselves as a cabinet member to be told ‘you’ve got to shave X million off your budget next year’.”
He added his belief that a lot of independent councillors and the lack of councils with an overall majority would make it even harder for difficult decisions to be taken and budgets to be passed.
“The problem now is we’ve got minority administrations in most Welsh authorities. The party running the council can’t be sure it will get its budget through,” he said.
“When you throw in all the Independents – not in a West Wales sense, ironically they’re very disciplined – their main interest is just the ward they were elected to represent. They’re not interested in big issues. There’s nothing for them in voting for cuts. For officers it’s a nightmare scenario.
“This is something you can’t play politics with, something you’ve got to engage people with. You’ve got to be quite blunt with people and say, ‘look, if you don’t want us to cut in this direction, where do you want us to cut?’
“It’s going to be very tough until 2017, 2018. I’ve always believed in being straight with people. There’s a need for a big debate. The national parties are all being completely dishonest.”
WLGA Chief Executive, Steve Thomas agrees. He believes that there will be a downsizing of the local government workforce and non-statutory services will suffer. However, he argues that the process can be managed and that key front line services can be partially protected.
Related posts:
