Sefton Council leader, Cllr Ian Maher has responded to a forecast by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) that Council tax could need to rise by up to 5% a year for the next three years.
Cllr Maher told yesterdayâs Sefton Council Cabinet meeting that if the Government continued to push social care costs on to local authorities and rely on Council Tax rises to fund vital local; services, it would widen disparities between area rather than achieve any levelling up.
Forecast
The IFS forecast says said under government spending plans, a rise of at least 3.6% on council tax bills will be needed annually to keep services at pre-pandemic levels. But the report says rises of up to 5% are likely owing to extra cost pressures and demand on councils. are more likely to see bills rise by up to 5% through to 2024/25.
Additionally, the IFS claimed the government’s recently-announced social care policies will cost ÂŁ5 billion a year in the long term, which is almost three times the funding that has been allocated over the next three years.
Englandâs councils face almost ÂŁ8 billion of extra cost pressures of by 2024/25 just to keep vital local services running at todayâs levels, the Local Government Association (LGA) has warned.
The LGAâs analysis says the ÂŁ8 billion figure is about addressing new pressures councils will face in the next three years. It does not include what it calls âthe very real pressures that councils are facing here and now such as paying care workers a fair wage or investing in the early intervention services which help families and young people falling into crisisâ.
Hardest hit
Cllr Maher said: âAs the country emerges from the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic and areas such as Sefton that have been among the hardest hit, start to recover, we are facing enormous financial pressures.
âThese are a result of a legacy of Government cuts and then a failure of ministers to provide sufficient support during rh pandemic, despite their claims at the beginning of this crisis, that they would do âwhatever it takesâ to support communities.
âIt is now becoming clear that the government’s plan for tackling existing pressures and the growing costs of social care is through Council Tax and the new social care precept.
âAs the research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the LGA have shown this is going to leave people facing significant rises in Council tax at the same time as they are having to deal with increasing household fuel costs, rising prices in the shops and the Governmentâs ÂŁ20 per week cut in Universal Credit uplift yesterday.â
In a recent letter to Sefton residents Cllr Maher wrote: âweâve always managed our budget to the highest standard despite having to make over ÂŁ233m of savings over the last 10 yearsâ.
Demand
In his letter, Cllr Maher said that all councils had seen a rise in demand for services as well as a drop in income from fees and charges and reductions in council tax and business rates and that Sefton Council had been calling on Government for months to deliver the resources needed to provide vital support and services to residents.
He wrote:Â âThe Government will have you believe that they are making ÂŁ1 billion of funding available for local authorities for social care. What they wonât tell you is that ÂŁ700 million of that comes from allowing councils to increase Council Taxâ.
Safeguarding
Cllr Maher called on the Government to make safeguarding vital local services for the long term, a priority for the Chancellorâs Spending Review later this month.
He said: âIf Minsters have any real commitment to levelling up society, as they keep claiming, providing robust and sustained funding for our services needs to be at the heart of it, rather than relying on people in already hard-hit areas to foot the bill themselves.
âWe are already building back in Sefton but if the government doesnât support us with long-term investment Boris Johnsonâs claims this week to be building back better will be seen as nothing more than political posturing and sloganeering.â
