Wed Feb 04, 2015 4:57 pm
I must say I find public reaction to the cuts frustrating.
Local government has no choice but to make cuts, given the big cuts in grants from the Welsh Government. Perhaps people find it confusing that cuts are taking place while council tax is being increased. But council tax makes up something like £1 in £6 of the overall budget of councils - the rest comes from the Welsh Government. So a 5% increase in council tax, is only enough to offset perhaps 1.2 percentage points of the 5% cut in the grant (in real terms) that many authorities are facing. That leaves nearly 4% cut in spending power. Add on the rising demand for social care, and statutory obligations for that and education - which together take up well over 2/3 of the local government budget - and you are left with a very big squeeze on unprotected areas. Thats libraries, leisure, economic development, refuse, public regulation and safety, etc.
So these cuts are inevitable given the situation local government finds itself in - local government has little choice. You can't cut say 12% in one year from unprotected services by "efficiencies" alone.
What other options are there? Welsh Government could allocate more of its budget to local government - but that would mean bigger cuts elsewhere, such as to health (an area it has started to top up following severe problems, and criticism for not offering protection before). Or the UK government could do more in the form of tax rises, or welfare cuts, to mean less pressure on service budgets - like that of the Welsh Government.
Joe public has to pay up to fill the budget deficit either way. Either higher taxes. Lower pensions and benefits. Less on local government services. Or less on other services. We need a proper public engagement and debate in this difficult balancing exercise, that recognises the trade offs. Instead we have single-issue lobbying on this library, or that surgery, or this arts organisation. It misses the bigger picture - its so parochial. How can we be so criticial of our politicians for failing to get a grip of the "big issues" when political activity and political reward is increasingly about these single-issue lobbying campaigns?
And David James rather missse the point as usual. Good private sector business knows the value of good management. And it knows you have to pay for that. Cardiff got lots of criticism for trying to boost its management capabilities by recruiting more strategic heads. It was seen as wasting money on highly paid pen pushers at a time of cutbacks. Private business often does that though - boosting top management, whilst cutting middle management, and makign cuts elsewhere. Strong management helps provide strategic direction, which can delvier far bigger savings and efficiencies in the long run. A good CEO can make a huge difference, contrary to the gripes of those on the "shop floor".
We are seeing another reorganisation. But it isn't clear what the reason underlying this is. Is it that they found that they don't need quite so many managers as they thought? (although still more than pre-2011) Is it a political move to be seen to be cutting management and 'bureaucracy'? Is it a short-termist cost cutting exercise that will harm strategic decision making and cost-cutting and service-delivery capability in the longer term?
It'd be great to get some "commentators" or opinion pieces talk about these strategic (or non strategic) issues, rather than chasing cheap headlines about payrises for senior execs. Political debate focuses on the little issues, and ignores the larger more important ones. Together with our parochial public, is it any surprise that our politicians, following the incentives created for them by us, often fail to think big and strategically too?
