SIGOMA Responds to the Final Local Government Finance Settlement

Posted on January 29, 2019

Commenting on today’s statement by Communities Secretary James Brokenshire, Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton CBE, Chairman of SIGOMA, the voice of towns and cities in England, said:

“We have lost confidence in the Government’s ability to carry out a fair funding review and will be backing calls already made by others for the National Audit Office to independently scrutinise the fairness of the review before it’s implemented.

“The Secretary of State has decided today to entrench unfairness with his local government funding decisions on Negative RSG and Rural Grant. The most affluent are benefiting again, whilst those least able to shoulder the burden of paying for local services lose out.

“This is despite repeated warnings from SIGOMA and others that the social care sector faces a £5.8bn funding gap by 2020, and despite the context of a recent £20bn funding boost being announced for the NHS and no new funding in the Settlement for social care.

“Councils working for towns and cities across the country are cutting to a bare minimum just to meet growing demand for social care, and the most deprived areas have been forced to cut many times deeper than the most affluent.”