As reported in last week’s MMT Lens Philip Alston’s report on extreme poverty and human rights is truly shocking. Far from austerity being based on the need for financial prudence, as claimed by the government, it is a deliberate assault on some of the poorest and most vulnerable citizens in the country driven by a pernicious ideology which divides people and tears down communities. Such ideology values the individual over cooperation and places personal responsibility for an individual’s fate in their own hands.
One of the areas where Philip Alston expressed considerable concern was the cuts to local authority budgets. In his interviews with local authority leaders, he reported that they are increasingly reduced to emergency provision. Such cuts to central funding have been destroying the fabric of public infrastructure and services across the UK, ripping the heart out of local communities. As his report so brutally revealed it has brought about unnecessary hardship and suffering and lives blighted or cut short by unnecessary austerity.
Alston’s criticism comes after several councils in England including Northamptonshire, East Sussex, Somerset and Surrey have reported financial difficulties. Councils are being forced to plunder their reserves to keep essential services going and make cuts to spending to other essential services. Staff have been sacked, pay frozen and libraries and other services closed or reduced to voluntary manning. Some councils are even facing the prospect of defaulting on their statutory duties to public health and social care or restricting services to the most vulnerable citizens. David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ is increasingly being expected to take responsibility for supporting its elders and vulnerablefriends and neighbours, paid for with goodwill.
The figures from the National Audit Office 2018 Report on Financial Sustainability of local authorities make for stark reading. There has been a:
49.1% real-terms reduction in government funding for local authorities between 2010-11 and 2017-18
28.6% real-terms reduction in local authorities’ spending power (government funding plus council tax) between 2010-11 and 2017-18
66.2% percentage of local authorities with social care responsibilities that drew down their financial reserves in 2016-17
Alongside reductions in funding local authorities have had to deal with growth in demand for key services as cuts to public spending have kicked in. Dealing with growing homelessness and coping with the extra demand for adult and children’s social care have all put huge pressures on local government. Eight years of austerity have increased demand for local government services associated with precarious employment, poverty, homelessness and rising crime.
The local charity sector has always played a significant role in supporting the needs of local communities and grants from local government have been its lifeblood. When David Cameron launched his big society drive to empower communities, he was less clear about how such work would be funded. Over the last eight years of central government-imposed austerity the charitable sector, which relied on local government grants for part of its funding flow, has been hard hit too.
One of the hardest hit services have been Sure Start Centres, a flagship New Labour policy, which was a local area–based programme delivering services and support to families with young children. Its aim was to reduce inequality whilst acting also as a gateway to more specialised service provision. Figures suggest that more than 1000 centres might have closed nationally in response to local authority funding pressures with a change of focus moving from a universal service to one targeting high need families.
Philip Alston referred in his press conference to the ‘mechanical economic analysis’ by government officials that ignores the damage being done to the fabric of British Society. Political choices are cloaked in the idea that there is no alternative to financial prudence. ‘Prudence’ in this context is seen simply in terms of the money-in, money-out of tax and spend and whether it ‘balances the books’.
This is not just about our libraries or other local services closing. This is an attack on the fundamental belief in the value of public service and public services to deliver public and social purpose for the health and well-being of the nation. The increasing focus on individual consumer desires instead of cooperation to bring about vital social cohesion is fracturing society. The government’s digital strategy will also disenfranchise many people whilst at the same time removing their access to IT by closing public libraries which also often provide safe meeting places for local organisations and charities such as Home Start and Sure Start.
The government, whilst claiming that there is no money, is the only entity able to secure funding for our public services. It has the currency issuing powers to ensure that funds are available to purchase the goods and services required to meet the needs of our local communities. By not investing today we are storing up, not a financial burden, but the burden of decaying infrastructure and the knowledge capital and know–how built up over decades at local level. The government is denying the power of the public purse to support a network of ready to go services with staff skilled and experienced in tailoring services to meet their own community needs.
Our local communities, high streets and businesses are the backbone of the economy they provide the glue that holds the nation together. As local government struggles to provide even its statutory duties, cuts ever more vital services and slashes staffing levels the consequences for local economies become ever clearer both in financial and social terms. Furthermore, the Big Society dream that the voluntary sector can fill the gaps left by lack of local government provision is an ideologically inspired Conservative fantasy.
Alston’s report is a wake-up call to the real alternative to cutting public spending. Failure to do so will cause further privation and distress which will have long term effects on the health and well-being of citizens and the economy.