Cllr Simon Radford on the need for fair funding

This summer, councils up and down the country have been assessing how proposed government changes to central funding for local authorities would affect their finances.

The current way of calculating how much money is allocated to a council is well over a decade out of date and fails to reflect current costs. The new government has recognised this and has consulted on proposals to get us to fairer funding, a process called the Fair Funding Review.

Unfortunately, while we gain in some areas of the proposed formula, estimates suggest we would see central funding for children’s services drop by £50m, placing the council’s budget under even greater pressure. This alone would leave us with a mountain to climb to achieve a balanced budget and to deliver on our growth agenda.

Barnet is one of the few areas in the country to have hit its growth targets, putting us in the top ten councils for building homes at pace. We are also on target to deliver 1,000 council homes, but our growth agenda and the delivery of council services, continue to be at risk.

Years of austerity have effectively halved the council’s budget since 2010 and, with unprecedented demand for complex services we have a legal duty to provide and their costs at an all-time high, it is now running on little more than fumes.

We are working hard to make ends meet and continue to deliver for residents. Earlier this year, the council received £55.7m in ‘exceptional financial support’ (essentially permission to borrow money) from the government to close our funding gap for this financial year.

£23m has also been identified through council savings and income generation. We have appointed an ‘improvement partner’, an independent critical friend to work with the cabinet and the council’s senior management to identify new ways of delivering statutory services with reduced budgets.

We are in the same situation as many other councils and we are fighting Barnet’s corner. Cabinet members and council officers have submitted a response to the government’s consultation on funding reforms, and we are lobbying government ministers to call for five vital changes to the proposed formula for calculating funding to reflect today’s realities and pressures.

These changes include taking full account of housing costs and reflecting the true cost of providing temporary accommodation, ensuring that prevention services for children and young people are financially supported, funding all additional burdens placed on local authorities, and making speedy reforms in key policy areas, like adult social care, to ensure complex and expensive support for people of all ages is financially sustainable.

We will work with the newly appointed secretary of state for local government Steve Reed and minister for local government Alison McGovern to outline how they can help well-run councils like Barnet reach financial sustainability while delivering on the government’s growth agenda.

The government must recognise that for us to reach financial sustainability and keep delivering their agenda for residents, fair funding must address these issues.

Simon Radford is Barnet Council’s cabinet member for financial responsibility.

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