Member

The whole finance system is already wobbling as it picks up the pieces from Covid, but this new NIC pressure comprehensively fails to provide councils with the security of funding they need to reliably and effectively deliver for all their communities. The lack of commitment from the comprehensive spending review adds further insult to injury. We are storing up a huge democratic problem when two-thirds of budgets are spent on just 4% of the population, when 96% do not get to see any of it, as other parts of the state cost-shunt on to councils. It is a fantasy to think that local government reorganisation, creating those huge, remote, Orwellian strategic authorities to replace the local friendly districts, will not aggravate the situation even more.