Local Government Finance

Debate between Graham Stuart and Annette Brooke

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

As a vice-president of the Local Government Association, I wish to start by discussing the LGA figures. They point out clearly that there has been a 40% reduction in core Government funding since 2010, and that today’s settlement will require councils to make a further £2.5 billion in budget cuts. We must all be concerned about the financial sustainability of local government, and I concur with some of the points made by Labour Members and by my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh). We must praise councils and councillors across the country for the way in which most have responded to the challenges, finding new ways of working, finding efficiency savings and protecting front-line services—and we find that satisfaction in council services has increased. That is remarkable.

I am proud that this Government introduced the Localism Act 2011 and of the emphasis on local decision making, with some notable exceptions such as top-down pronouncements or when local authorities have to implement local schemes with inadequate funds under constraints set by central Government such as the council tax reduction scheme. On that issue, more transparency on central support—or lack of support as the case may be—would be welcome.

Looking ahead, to deliver services more efficiently and effectively and to drive economic growth we must have devolution within and across England and on demand, building on what has been achieved so far. I do not exclude counties, as it is right that we have bottom-up devolution, through which areas outside the cities have opportunities to have more power. Tax-raising powers should be given to such areas. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury discussed that very point this week. Westminster has to let go.

It would be good to see published work on the implications of increasing the proportion of business rates retained by local authorities. I welcome the Government’s inclusion in the final settlement of an additional £74 million for local welfare assistance. I could criticise it and say that it is not enough, but to be honest, I am greatly relieved that all the many representations were listened to, including my own and that of the Liberal Democrat communities and local government committee, of which I am a co-chair. I feel so strongly that local authorities are a place of last resort for people who are destitute and who must be able to access immediate support when some unforeseen crisis has occurred.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Can my right hon. Friend explain why her party believes that the local government settlement should and can be determined by the votes of Scottish MPs, when Scotland decides on the distribution of its local government formula itself? That is fundamentally unfair to the English voter whose will at the ballot box should hold in the way that local government funding is distributed.

[Annette Brooke]

I think I will stick to the issue under discussion this afternoon. I am very much speaking from a personal viewpoint.

Let me continue with comments on the local welfare assistance fund. I wish to address some of the brilliant schemes that the fund has been used to support. I hope that they will be able to continue and that the £74 million will continue—or even be increased—in the future.

On behalf of town and parish councils I wish to make a few general points. It is to be welcomed that no town or parish councils will be subject to the referendum threshold. That has concerned me greatly, because parish councils have taken on more responsibilities as services have been cut from higher level councils. I feel that that is a great deterrent to the taking on of some really important services, such as a community library in my constituency, but concerns remain on the short-changing by some principal councils of Government funding for council tax support. The National Association of Local Councils identified more than 30 such councils this financial year, and its research shows that the number of principal councils not passing on any council tax support funding to town and parish councils will increase in 2015-16.

I have just received a holding answer to some questions that I tabled. I was told that my question on what further action the Minister will take on this issue will take a little more work. I hope that the Minister will be able to give me an answer today. Will he tell me what more can be done to ensure that principal councils pass on this funding, which is intended to be passed on? I represent parts of both rural and urban authorities, and I support the Rural Fair Share Campaign. We have had some welcome steps in the right direction, but there is a central unfairness to rural residents, which is that they receive less in services and pay more. We need much more done in that area.

I welcome the reconsideration by the Government of Christchurch and East Dorset councils’ bid for the transformation challenge award and the allocation now of £867,500. The two councils have been working on service sharing for some time now, following a line suggested by the Government. That process has been hard for staff and a recent survey showed that staff morale is very low. I hope that this fund will mean a smoother process and some reassurances that residents in Corfe Mullen, Wimborne and Colehill in my constituency will not feel that they are on the fringes and left out.

I was very pleased when the three principal councils in Dorset were named as the first winners of the Government’s transformation challenge award in October 2013. With other partners, they are working together to transform how health and social services are delivered across Dorset over the coming years, but despite the excellent work that is taking place, funding for social care remains of enormous concern in my constituency.

I decided to look at my first speech in this House on local government finance and I found that in October 2002 I said that

“in the south-west, a recent analysis shows that there is a £70 million care gap. Local authorities are warning that the social care safety net is not adequate for children, the elderly and the vulnerable.”—[Official Report, 24 October 2002; Vol. 391, c. 452.]

Of course, I was addressing a Labour Government. The needs are rising and the problem is becoming worse, but we should acknowledge that it is this Government who have made moves to bring health and social care funding together to make services work better together and to get more for our money. Those are moves in the right direction, although of course I would like some transparency and clarity about the extra funding available through the better care fund for local authorities.

I recently met the leader of Poole borough council, Councillor Elaine Atkinson, and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams). The council leader’s concerns centred around the ranking of Poole, which is the third lowest funded unitary authority in England, and local needs. The greatest concerns were about social care, and I must praise the council leader, who is not a member of my party, for her passion for social care and for producing and providing the best possible services.

In Poole, the over-65s—that includes me—make up 21.61% of the population. That is a very hefty proportion indeed. For the rest of Dorset, the figure is 26.95%, and, interestingly, the figure is lower in Bournemouth. The demands are great and, of course, following the High Court ruling, we have extra expenditure on the deprivation of liberty safeguards. That judgment obviously affects the statutory requirements for all councils, and I am quite sure that it is important, but there is a shortage of funding. Additionally, as many Members have mentioned, there are even more pressures across children’s social care. That is happening for the saddest possible reasons, but at least we are alert to what is happening out there.

With Poole always having such a low ranking, there is very little room for manoeuvre with the extra demands placed on it. There is great concern that not as much money is coming out of the better care fund locally from the Dorset clinical commissioning group as was initially expected. I welcome the fact that Poole is to receive extra funding to help with the winter pressures of people being stuck in hospital when they are sick but do not necessarily need a hospital bed.

A point that the council leader was very anxious to make concerned the difference between Poole and Bournemouth. It is very difficult to make comparisons between different places to argue a case, but her point was that Poole is allowed to retain 25.49% of its business rates whereas Bournemouth is allowed to retain 42.46%. Obviously, that is worked out according to the existing formula. I do not doubt that the figures are correct, but I am beginning to doubt the mechanism, because on the face of it, looking at Poole and Bournemouth, I cannot understand it. I can understand it on the formula, but I think that it will be really sad if we have to wait until 2020 for the make-up of that percentage to be looked at. I would like that to be reviewed earlier.

In conclusion, I have said a lot today about social care, because I think that local government’s greatest concern is that day of doom, as we have heard. The Care Act 2014 is introducing new and welcome responsibilities, but with them come great uncertainty about the scale of the costs. I think that local government has done us proud. It is important that central Government give local government the tools and resources it needs.

Funding for Local Authorities

Debate between Graham Stuart and Annette Brooke

Thursday 10th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her support for the rural fair share campaign. One of the problems is that the Government are looking at local government finance, but they are freezing in, not just damping, the inequities that see people in rural areas, who earn less on average than people in urban areas, pay more in council tax and receive fewer services: 50% more goes per head to urban areas than to rural areas. That cannot be frozen and kept in place at a time of change; it must be unwound, and there must be other reforms.

[Annette Brooke]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the work he has done in leading on this issue. All types of councils have their problems. This is a strong issue, and when there is a problem it does not help to build it in—the whole situation has to be opened out. I mention in passing the concern of parish councils and what will happen to their funding with regard to the local council reduction scheme. Perhaps the Minister will update us on that. I remember attending a meeting with parish councils when the Minister was answering questions on that matter.

In conclusion, local government is facing a tough situation and that has to be accepted. I agree with the hon. Member for Sheffield South East that we should look at what local government does best, pulling local government services together and providing greater opportunities to bring more services together. We believe in localism; let us enable localism to happen. By supporting local initiatives, so much more can be delivered. I agree that local government borrowing that complies with prudential rules should be facilitated. That is a fundamental principle. I want to see more services delivered by local government, not fewer—for there to be a bigger range, with better quality and other services facilitated. Sometime it is right to bring in the voluntary sector, but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), who made the point that we cannot delegate everything to the voluntary sector.

I hope the Minister will listen. There is a problem. Let us recognise it and support local councils to do what they do best.

Academies Bill [Lords]

Debate between Graham Stuart and Annette Brooke

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

I would like to be able to say that it is a pleasure to follow the shadow Secretary of State, but that contribution was a bid for the leadership of not only the luddite tendency, but the mean-spirited tendency. I would have thought that, whatever their views about the policies that this Bill represents, anyone in this House would recognise that everyone in this House seeks the best for all our children. To suggest that the Secretary of State would not do so is low, even for the shadow Secretary of State.

Cuts in public spending and posts were made inevitable by the disastrous financial stewardship of the Labour party, which took a golden legacy and then blew it. Labour made promises on school buildings, on teacher training and on so many other areas that, it turned out, it simply could not fund. It now lies with the coalition Government to clean up the mess that the shadow Secretary of State played such a major part in creating.

So the new Government have to find ways to improve public services and enhance, rather than reduce, the life chances of our children without spending additional money. The two coalition partners are united in believing that one of the best ways of doing that is by giving greater autonomy to local communities and those on the front line of public services. This Bill will take academy freedoms and make them potentially available to all schools for the first time; primary and special schools, as well as secondary schools, will be able to become independent state schools, free at the point of use, but with control over their curriculum, their teaching hours—at least, in theory—and their special educational needs provision and the like.

That is a good thing and it is why I support this Bill, despite the fact that, generally speaking, I am a structural change sceptic. Reorganisations are too frequent, too expensive and too convenient for politicians who wish to make their mark. This policy, like all education policies, should be measured by whether it will result in better teachers, better led. The key determinant of a good education is the quality of the teaching work force. I hope that this Bill, the expansion of Teach First and the introduction of a pupil premium for children from lower-income families will, along with other measures, improve the quality, motivation and retention of high-calibre people in education. If it does that, it will have succeeded.

The Bill builds on the previous Government’s academies programme, which itself grew from Lord Baker’s innovations back in the 1980s. It takes those programmes forward and is not, therefore, radically new. The changes that this Bill will bring about are not minor, however. They may not be radically new in concept, but they are potentially radical in effect. If hundreds of schools leave local authority control each year—starting in September—the implications for our education system overall will be profound. The powers in the Bill are essentially permissive, as Ministers emphasise. That does mean, though, that different local authorities will be affected in different ways.

Countries behind the former iron curtain that moved from centrally controlled economies to free-market systems did not always find the transition easy or pleasant. When the centre collapses, some services and skills are scattered and even destroyed and they take time to grow again. Even when crying freedom, it is best to think deeply, consider carefully and do everything possible to minimise the potential downsides of change.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that despite the welcome amendments in the other place, there is great uncertainty about the provision of special educational needs education, particularly for children with complex needs, with funding split between the academies and the local authorities? I am concerned that we might end up with the worst of all worlds for some of our most vulnerable and needy children.

[Mr Stuart]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention and I share some of those concerns. I hope that, in this coming week, those on the Government Front Bench will be able to allay those concerns. Last week I visited an academy, called the Ashcroft technology academy. It has a centre it calls the ARC, which specialises in looking after children on the autistic spectrum, and an AWA—an academy within an academy—for children otherwise at risk of exclusion. By using those innovations, the academy has done a tremendous job of looking after those with special educational needs as well as intervening to ensure that there is not a higher than average number of exclusions from the school. Academies can be part of the answer and the innovation that they allow can improve the situation in the average school today.