Kirklees Council Deputation on Funding and Settlement
Rt Hon Marcus Jones MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
Department for Communities and Local Government
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
Dear Rt Hon Marcus Jones MP
We discussed:-
- The low underlying funding base of Kirklees Council.
- The combination of
quantified unfunded pressure in Adult’s Services and Waste and the combination of
volume and quality pressure on Children’s Services.
- The track record of
substantial efficiency improvement and savings achieved by the Council to
date.
- The late changes in
the local government settlement and related announcements that risk undermining our financial
plans for 2017/18. These relate to New Homes Bonus and Education Services Grant amounting to £2.26m in 2017
rising to £10.8m by the end of the period. This includes a loss of
unringfenced New Homes Bonus Grant of £3.9m over the period replaced by a
one off Adult Social Care Grant of £1.9m. The adverse impact of this in a district with
two struggling hospital trusts will be real. It is impossible to find alternative resources
next year with this notice.
- Our Council’s
approach to accepting freeze grant and using resources in line with
successive government’s policies.
- The cross party nature of the request to you from both Councillors and MP’s.
We also outlined
that we are not necessarily looking for new money from government but urgently need the ability to bring forward
funding that is available later in the 4 year settlement.
We heard your
message that you have very limited room for manoeuvre and that CLG does have room within its
own resources to provide transitional assistance but we need to be clear that if any such resources were to be available to
any part of local government, irrespective of funding source we have a clear
expectation from our conversation that they would be available to Kirklees.
We would also be
grateful for any suggestions you have about mechanisms that we could explore
with Treasury, DFE or any other government department to remedy the funding
shortfall that the Council faces in 2017/18 in particular.
We look forward
to your early reply on this specific issue.
You also
encouraged us to take an active part in the fairer funding review which we have
and will continue to do through the LGA, SIGOMA and in our own right. However
that will not address the urgent need for resources in 2017/18 to underpin the
delivery of our longer term savings plans which will bring us into surplus
during the 4 year settlement period.
We should make it clear that this is not our full response
to the local government settlement but felt it would be helpful to write
immediately following our meeting yesterday.
Yours sincerely
Councillor David Sheard Leader of the Council
Councillor David Hall Leader of the Conservative Group
Councillor Nicola Turner Leader of the Liberal Democrats
Councillor Andrew Cooper Leader of the Green Party
Councillor Charles Greaves Leader of the Valley Democrats
