‘Why the Fair Funding Review can deliver transformational change’

Local authorities are the heartbeat of our communities and form the basis for most people’s everyday interactions with politics. They deliver the local public services on which we all rely, having our bins collected, our streets cleaned, and the most vulnerable in society cared for. Local government knows our communities better than Westminster, and it is this homegrown approach which makes them critical to the success of our communities.

Sadly, the past 15 years have seen the capacity of local government undermined and underfunded at a time in which demand for their services has risen rapidly. These pressures are most acute in the most deprived areas across England.

I am hugely proud to have recently been elected as the new Parliamentary Chair of SIGOMA, providing a voice in Parliament for 50 local authorities across England, including some of the most deprived areas in the country, and those which have been on the sharp end of the funding cuts of the austerity years.

Far from ‘levelling up’ areas across the North and Midlands, these areas have been systematically undermined by previous Conservative governments more concerned with some wealthier areas in the South (something which the former Prime Minister openly celebrated in a garden party in Tunbridge Wells) than distributing money where it is needed the most. Over the past decade, SIGOMA members saw real term funding cuts that were 25% worse than the English average, and four times worse than the shire counties. This cannot be right, and addressing these funding inequalities is essential.

In this context, the Fair Funding Review, announced earlier this year, was welcomed by our members as a genuine first step to righting the wrongs of previous governments in helping to get money back to where it is needed the most. While this will not solve all of the issues that local government is facing overnight, it nevertheless provides a vital platform on which to start reinvesting in communities across England and undoing the damage inflicted by years of austerity.

READ MORE: ‘London’s streets aren’t paved with gold. Cuts would hit the poorest the hardest’

Policies like the 100% Council Tax equalisation could see up to £1.5bn extra in grant funding distributed to SIGOMA areas, helping to rebalance funding due to the limited council tax raising ability of some of our smaller towns and cities, while the new Children’s Formula based on deprivation-related criteria will help us invest more in giving young people the best start in life. The move to a multi-year settlement will also help our members plan for the longer term, ending the short-term approach which yearly settlements have necessitated.  

Overall, the picture is positive for our members, and I am pleased that across the board the government will ensure that those areas which have lost out so badly under austerity do not continue to do so. 

Unlike parts of  London and some of the wealthier areas in the South, our members are limited in their ability to grow their Council Tax base and benefit from retaining local business rates or generating income through car parking and other commercial income. Equally, more deprived areas also tend to have lower collection rates, reducing an authority’s income and leading to a doom loop of further cuts to services alongside increases in Council Tax bills. All of this is to the detriment of the communities that we serve, and whose lives are made even more challenging as a result.

The Fair Funding Review is a once in a generation opportunity to level the playing field and ensure that communities across England once again receive the investment and support that they so desperately need.

In areas like mine in Doncaster – as is the case for many of my colleagues in SIGOMA areas – we are at the forefront of the fight against Reform. Years of austerity and the decline in public services have fuelled a lack of trust in politics. We need to demonstrate the value that a Labour government in Westminster can provide to communities like ours. We must not let them down.

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