A Tory-controlled local authority has called on ministers to fix a “broken” system of council funding after it emerged its deteriorating finances mean it is at serious risk of going bust.
Somerset county council has been told that large overspends on children’s social services, coupled with reduced government funding and the erosion of its reserves, have left its finances “in a very challenging position”.
A formal peer review says any failure to meet its ambitious financial savings targets for the current year would leave the council at risk of being unable to set a balanced budget within months – in effect leaving it at risk of insolvency.
The county, which has already announced unpopular plans to close two-thirds of its Sure Start children’s centres, more than half of it's libraries and make big reductions to its learning disability centers, must now find further cuts.
In order to gain electoral advantage (buy votes, to you and me) Somerset Tory-run council decided to freeze council tax for six years after 2010, despite swingeing national cuts in funding, and at a time when austerity measures were increasing demand on services.
Did anyone believe the Tories when they claimed that there have been no real cuts ? And then vote for Tory councils ?
You get all you deserve, but taking it out on the young and the disadvantaged is uniquely a Tory kind of cruelty.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... ing-systemA Tory-controlled local authority has called on ministers to fix a “broken” system of council funding after it emerged its deteriorating finances mean it is at serious risk of going bust.
Somerset county council has been told that large overspends on children’s social services, coupled with reduced government funding and the erosion of its reserves, have left its finances “in a very challenging position”.
A formal peer review says any failure to meet its ambitious financial savings targets for the current year would leave the council at risk of being unable to set a balanced budget within months – in effect leaving it at risk of insolvency.
The county, which has already announced unpopular plans to close two-thirds of its Sure Start children’s centres, more than half of it's libraries and make big reductions to its learning disability centers, must now find further cuts.
In order to gain electoral advantage (buy votes, to you and me) Somerset Tory-run council decided to freeze council tax for six years after 2010, despite swingeing national cuts in funding, and at a time when austerity measures were increasing demand on services.
Did anyone believe the Tories when they claimed that there have been no real cuts ? And then vote for Tory councils ?
You get all you deserve, but taking it out on the young and the disadvantaged is uniquely a Tory kind of cruelty.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/18/tory-council-at-risk-of-bankruptcy-slams-broken-funding-system
