Budget 2020 is ‘sticking plaster’ for local government, says Hackney mayor

Hackney Mayor Philip Glanville has called out Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak’s £30bn budget as a “sticking plaster” for the local government sector.

The Chancellor used yesterday’s announcement to claim that the Conservatives had become “the party of public services” with his fiscal stimulus, but the borough leader retorted that those services have the same “gaping holes” as before.

Sunak also unveiled a sweeping package of measures designed to support businesses and families through the outbreak of coronavirus, with the council to hold “urgent discussions” with the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government on how the support will be accessed.

Mayor Glanville said: “We welcome the measures the Chancellor announced to support vulnerable residents, workers and small businesses through the outbreak of coronavirus, and we continue to work closely with Public Health England to limit its spread in Hackney.

“However, his wider budget proposals showed that while the government says the decade of austerity is over, it is clearly not.

“The government’s mission to ‘level up’ the rest of the country should not be at the expense of places like Hackney – which despite huge changes over the last 20 years, still faces just as complex challenges and families living in poverty as other places in England.

“There was no mention of the huge funding gaps in places like Hackney to deliver adult social care or provide support for children with special educational needs.

“Rather than just focussing on filling in potholes, the Chancellor should focus on filling the gaping holes in frontline public services.”

The council will now be seeking further information on the coronavirus support announcements made by Mr Sunak, including a £500m hardship fund for local authorities, a year’s business rates holiday for retailers, and guarantees on the accessibility of statutory sick pay for workers.

Despite Prime Minister Boris Johnson promising to “fix the crisis in social care once and for all” last year, Mayor Glanville pointed to spending in Hackney increasing by a further £4.2m on last year.

The Town Hall approved a 3.99 per cent increase in council tax towards the end of February to help balance government grants for councils slashed by half over the past decade, with Hackney seeing a cut per household of £1,459, the highest of any London borough.

Despite two per cent of this tax rise aimed directly at adult social care, as well as one-off government funding for this year, Hackney has said that its settlement for these services is still “not sustainable”, with £108m forecast to be spent this year.

The Town Hall will be hoping for further announcements in the autumn on social care and on funding for children with special educational needs and disabilities, with no new funding announced in an area which has many local authorities’ budgets at breaking point as demand continues to rise.

Hackney was allocated a further £4m for SEND by the government, which is around half what is required.

The Mayor also welcomed the announcement of a £1bn Grenfell building safety fund, as residents in De Beauvoir and across the country reportedly continue to struggle with worries over fire safety and high costs caused by non-compliant cladding, while warning that the billion on offer would be likely to “only scratch the surface of what is required”.

The council leader also reiterated warnings over any change in the fair funding formula to remove ‘deprivation’ as a measure in how local authorities are funded.

A 2019 study by Child Poverty Action Group showed that 48 per cent of children in Hackney lived below the poverty line in 2017/18, up from 41.3 per cent the year before.

Read more about Hackney’s budget here – hackney.gov.uk/budget

Find out more about coronavirus and how to protect yourself here and here.

Find Public Health England’s guidance for employers and businesses here.