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County Council faces hard choices following Budget

ByEmily

Nov 13, 2017 #budget, #Government]

North Yorkshire County Council faces the bleak prospect of further tough decisions following the Chancellor’s budget today which seems to offer no relief from relentless austerity for local government.

There is little in the budget which will ease the pressure for the council in delivering services for children and for young, older and vulnerable people.

Although the Government has announced extra money for the NHS there is no immediate cash boost for adult social care where North Yorkshire faces enormous pressures.   Although the Council welcomes the publication next year of a  Green Paper which will set out major changes to adult social care for a more effective and sustainable system, this is for the long term and does not address the present crisis.

The council must wait for its final settlement in December but today’s headline budget announcements would suggest that the long term position remains largely unchanged with the county council having to save a further £43m from its revenue budget by 2019/20. The council has plans for £33m and a savings gap of £10m remains before news of the next funding settlement is made. This gives a total of £169.4m saved over the decade – which represents a reduction of 34 per cent in the council’s spending power.

So far, out of £152m the council has already saved, only 25 per cent has had an impact on frontline services to communities.  The vast majority of savings have come from back office and administration, staff and management posts, procurement changes and other general efficiencies.

“We are now down to the bone” said County Councillor Gareth Dadd, North Yorkshire’s Deputy Leader and Executive Member for Finance. “We have done everything we can possibly do to protect frontline services thus far and will attempt to do so going forward.  But with national productivity flat lining, it appears austerity will continue for local government.  We will scrutinise the detail of the local government settlement in December, but as things stand it would appear we have nowhere else to go but to make some very tough decisions.”

The county council continues to prioritise spending in all areas that deal with vulnerable people, both young and old, but the demands on an increasingly stretched budget only continue to grow.

Currently there are 140,000 people in North Yorkshire (out of a 600,000 population) aged over 65 of which 13.5 per cent (19,000) are aged over 85 –projected to increase dramatically in future years. National studies show that North Yorkshire is already at a place where the rest of the country will be in 2020, with demand for services and demographic trends five years ahead of the national average.

Despite £5m of additional funding for adult social care raised through the 2 per cent social care precept in the council tax, the pressures are unrelenting and the county council is this year expecting a £3m overspend.

The county council has long called on the Government to give long-term fairer funding to large rural counties like North Yorkshire as one way of easing some of the pressures.

People in North Yorkshire pay almost twice as much council tax in relative terms as those in urban and London boroughs like Westminster and Camden and receive less Government funding, yet the costs tend to be higher.  Moreover, by April 2019 the council is due to receive no core government funding whereas some councils such as those in London will continue to receive significant levels of government funding.

The county council is also concerned that £1.7 bn announced today for transport infrastructure will go largely to cities and urban areas.  “Investment in infrastructure is necessary in rural as well as urban areas if we are truly to improve connectivity east to west, north to south and across our northern regions,” added Cllr Dadd.

“North Yorkshire is respected as a high performing, low spending council with an innovative can-do culture, but we are concerned that overall the needs of rural areas are given low priority and this budget has done nothing to dispel that concern. We will campaign vigorously for fairer funding for our rural county.”

The details of the county council’s funding settlement from Government are expected later in December and councillors will meet to consider the council’s proposed budget on 21 February 2018.

By Emily