SIGOMA warns against further cuts to local government spending

Posted on March 12, 2024

At the Spring Budget, the Chancellor confirmed that there would be a 1% real-terms increase in public spending after the current Spending Review period. This will leave 'unprotected' departments, such as local government, facing real-terms cuts.

For local government this will mean another round of deep cuts to budgets.

Speaking to i News, Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton, chair of the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities said:

"It is no longer about a few councils being in jeopardy – it is the whole sector that is now in jeopardy.

In order to maintain funding for child and adult social care, the very visible quality of life services will be reduced or disappear altogether.

Things like street cleaning, waste collection, grass cutting, all the services outside of the protected budgets for social care that are about quality of life for people, these are going to come under huge pressure if not disappear altogether.

These are the things that are most visible, that have the most value, the things that most people think they pay their council taxes for. If the very things that people see disappear, there is going to be a lot of public unrest around that.”

Read the full comment in the i News here.

Cllr Sir Stephen Houghton's comment was also picked up in the Northern Agenda.