INCREASING pressures on budgets and some confusion around government financial proposals were highlighted by the Leader of Thurrock Council at Wednesday (14 October) evening’s cabinet meeting.
Cllr John Kent was speaking to the regular Shaping the Council item and said: “This past week or so has thrown up some interesting conundrums as far as the finances of the council are concerned.
“The first is what is becoming known as Thurrock’s ‘Graph of Doom’, highlighting that when we took the administration back in 2010, the government supported us to the tune of £62½ million.
“This year that like-for-like figure is around £26 million – a cut of £36 million, that’s over £500 for each home in the borough.
“The graph clearly shows that we expect by 2019 that government funding will have pretty-much fallen off the bottom of the graph; one-hundred-and-twenty-eight-thousand pounds only. A 99 per cent cut in less than a decade.”
Cllr Kent added: “I’ve asked that this graph appears at every cabinet meeting to help focus our minds on the scale of the situation we are all having to deal with.”
He went on to talk of the Chancellor’s speech to the Conservative Conference earlier in the month where “he appeared to suggest that, in the future, we’ll be able to keep all the business rates we collect”.
Cllr Kent said: “When I heard the proposal I was reminded of those halcyon days in the late 80s when Thurrock Council encouraged the creation and building of Lakeside Shopping Centre because it meant our council tax – or rates in those days – would have been zero.
“But then of course the government of the day moved the goalposts, nevertheless, if we could keep all the business rates again, we would be able to cut council tax dramatically and fully fund any services we wanted.
“Sadly, I know that won’t happen and nobody with an iota of common sense thinks it will happen either, much of our business rates will be taken away and distributed to the leafy country and county areas which just do not generate enough from their shops, offices and industry.”
He went on to highlight some of the funding pressures the council was facing in addition to those of about £1⅓ million detailed in September.
Specifically he talked about Children’s Services where the council was expecting reduced support from NHS Thurrock CCG, increased numbers of unaccompanied children asylum seekers, the ending of the adoption support grant and the need to support newly qualified social workers” as well as “the need for additional specialist resources for child sexual exploitation prevention”.
Cllr Kent also said there were pressures in housing over the increasing problems around homelessness.
He concluded by saying: “I’d like to reiterate what I said last month in relation to cross-party involvement in the budget-setting process. It has been superb and I am really looking forward to that understanding and co-operation continuing as the more difficult decisions have to be made.
“I think everybody, now, understands the issues we face and I hope we can avoid the traditional you-said-we-said disagreements at least between now and February.”
