09 November 2007
Local government leaders' eyes are firmly fixed on the detail of the forthcoming Revenue Support Grant for some certainty on exactly where the Comprehensive Spending Review settlement has left them.
Addressing a New Local Government Network conference, convened to digest the implications of the CSR, Noel O'Neil, director of corporate financial affairs at Vale Royal Borough Council in Cheshire, predicted that the areas under financial pressure – adult and children's services – would do well out of the RSG.
'Us in the little old districts… might see a real cut,' he told the conference on November 1. 'We don't know that yet; it's still in the offing.'
Bernard Priest, executive member for finance at Manchester City Council, said the CSR had left local government with lots of uncertainties.
'Until we get the settlement in December we're not really sure whether this is good for us or not,' he said.
But he was sanguine about the tightness of the CSR, which granted councils just a 1% average real-terms increase over each of the next three years.
'The route to success is anticipating what's going to happen,' Priest said.
'Is this a time when we should be crying about cuts or simply celebrating the opportunity to bring about more efficiencies? I don't think you can afford to have the attitude that this is about cuts.'
O'Neil agreed that there was more local government could do to generate efficiencies, saying few inroads had been made into joint procurement or shared services.
'In Cheshire, in the two-tier system, we're only just touching the surface on procurement.
We've got seven building maintenance contracts across seven local authorities. We've got six refuse collection contracts. We've done very little in bringing all our buying power together… We've not pulled it together locally and we've not reaped the benefits,' he said.
But Local Government Minister John Healey gave short shrift to a question from the floor requesting more money to support joint working across councils.
'It's disappointing to hear you say that your first question if you want to consider joint working is how much more money central government is going to provide to incentivise you to do that,' he said.'What you should be asking for is expertise.'
PFnov2007
