WIREDGOV

Responding to the spending review, Baroness Margaret Eaton, chairman of the Local Government Association, said:

“This spending review will hit councils and the residents they serve very hard and will inevitably lead to cuts at the front line.

“These are some of the biggest cuts in the public sector and we have to be honest about their impact.

“Town halls will now face extremely tough choices about which services they can keep on running. These cuts will cause real pain and anxiety for millions of people who use the services councils provide, from keeping children safe to ensuring that streets are clean.

 “Councils will do all they can to minimise the effect of these cuts and will build on their record of delivering new and better ways of doing things in order to keep public services running in these tough times. But savings on this scale are bound to hit services upon which people rely.

“The Government has responded positively, however, to some of the central arguments made by local government. The significant increase in funding for adult social care from Government and the NHS is good news and reflects something councils have been arguing for many years.

“There are also important moves towards much simpler funding mechanisms that will help councils do their job. The Government has eased burdens on local government, given us much greater freedoms and flexibilities over our budgets and taken a first step towards wider reform with councils in the vanguard of reforming the way the public sector operates.

“Town halls want to join up local public services to ensure we deliver the services residents demand and expect, but we can't do it alone. Councils want to work with other areas of the public and voluntary sector to break down wasteful bureaucratic barriers.

“Ministers must move much faster to redraw the way public services are delivered so the people we serve come before the interests of the Whitehall machine.”

Author: LGA Media Office
Contact: LGA Media Office, Tel: 020 7664 3333