At a meeting of the local authority’s Executive on Wednesday evening (September 17), Council Leader Colin Smith claimed the Government “doesn’t appear to care” about the financial fate of councils, and that it hadn’t done so for over 20 years.
Bromley’s Executive members were presented with a budget report from the council’s Director of Finance, Peter Turner, which projected an £18m overspend this financial year; £9.8m of this is due to be spent on adult health and social care, with a further £4.5m on housing. Councillors present were quick to blame a lack of Government funding for the continued budgetary pressures.
Cllr Christopher Marlow said: “I think it just underlines how with the current formula for funding local government, every local authority will eventually be in an unsustainable position and I think that’s an absolute certainty. Unless the Government is prepared to totally rewrite the local government funding formula, parts of which have calculations dating back to the 60s, this is not going to change.”
Cllr Smith agreed with Cllr Marlow and added: “It is an insane formula based on absolutely bizarre statistics from a bygone era. It’s mad. This has been going on right back to the beginning of the millennium. Central Government doesn’t appear to care about local government’s fate; they never have done by the looks of it.
“Even Bromley, when some of us are inclined to disagree politically, we all agree [it is a] well-run council, especially around finance. If Bromley is on the verge of falling over in a few years’ time, God help the others because there must be some real basket cases out there just holding their breath and hanging on by their fingernails.”
Mr Turner also said the Government’s Fair Funding Review 2.0 (FFR 2.0) plans were “not looking favourable for Bromley”. FFR 2.0 would update the formula used to calculate how much each council will receive in central government funding, incorporating area cost adjustments and accounting for councils’ ability to raise revenue through council tax.
According to analysis undertaken by London Councils, a collaborative body made up of representatives of the city’s various borough councils, this overhaul would dramatically reduce the amount of funding councils in the capital receive.
London’s local government collective predicts that councils across the city will receive £700m less than they would under current funding arrangements. Bromley has responded to the Government’s FFR 2.0 consultation and communicated the problems it sees within the proposals.
In more positive financial news, Bromley’s Chief Transformation Officer, Naheed Chaudhry, delivered an update at the meeting on Transforming Bromley, a programme launched last year aimed at making savings across the council. She reported that 84 of the 85 projects from the first year of the programme were on track to deliver £18.3m of savings, just shy of the £18.9m target.
Cllr Smith congratulated all who were involved in the Transforming Bromley programme. He said: “It’s quite remarkable what officers have managed to achieve here against the backdrop of dire financial ruin. To pull this amount of money out of our services without damaging frontline delivery is, I think, quite remarkable.”
