Leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, Cllr Nancy Platts, has joined with other Labour Leaders from across England and Wales to call on Boris Johnson, the new Prime Minister, to end Tory cuts to local government.
TORY cuts mean councils have lost 60p out of every £1 that the last Labour Government was spending on local government in 2010.
Pressures on councils are increasing – adult social care is crumbling, more children are being taken into care than ever before, and there is a dire shortage of council housing.
Hard-working council staff who deliver services have lost the equivalent of £1 out of every £5 they earned before, and are now the lowest paid in the public sector.
The letter has been signed by over 100 Labour Council Leaders from England and Wales and it calls on the new Prime Minister to immediately invest £2bn in children’s services and £2bn in adult social care, reverse the changes to the council funding formula that have forced the biggest cuts on the most deprived areas, and pledge to use the Spending Review to restore council funding to 2010 levels over the next four years.
Leader of Brighton and Hove City Council Cllr Nancy Platts said: “This letter has my full support. Along with other Labour Council Leaders I am calling on the new Prime Minister to immediately invest £2bn into children’s services and £2bn into adult social care, as well as using the upcoming Spending Review to restore funding to local government to 2010 levels over the next four years.”
“We are delivering a powerful message to the Prime Minister and Chancellor that councils simply cannot take any more cuts. Further cuts to local government by central government will mean that there will be devastating effects for children at risk and many vulnerable people, as well as on community services up and down the country.”
The letter to the Prime Minister reads:
Dear Prime Minister,
“As Labour council leaders we run councils that millions of citizens rely on to deliver good quality public services – protecting vulnerable children and older people, keeping streets clean, and running much-loved parks and libraries.
“But since 2010 our funding from government has been cut by more than 60p in every £1 we previously received, and many council budgets have now reached breaking point. Hundreds of thousands of hard-working council staff who deliver our services have lost the equivalent of £1 of every £5 they earned before, and are now the lowest paid in the public sector. Adult social care is crumbling, more children are being taken into care than ever before, and there is a dire shortage of council housing. In each of the last few years the only response from the government has been to produce sticking plasters – small short-term pots of money designed merely to paper over the cracks for another year. This can’t go on.
“In your campaign to become our new Prime Minister you claimed that you would bring our country together. There is no better way for you to prove that this was more than empty rhetoric than by truly ending austerity in local government. No more sticking plasters – we need a serious long term re-investment to ensure a sustainable future for councils.
Therefore as Labour Council leaders we are calling on you to:
♦ Immediately invest £2bn in children’s services and £2bn in adult social care to stop these vital emergency services from collapsing
♦ Reverse the changes to the council funding formula that have forced the biggest cuts on to councils in the most deprived areas
♦ Pledge to use the Spending Review to restore council funding to 2010 levels over the next four years
We would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you.”