THE county council faces cuts of millions of pounds every year – even if central government ends austerity measures, residents have been warned.
The amount of money being spent on children’s and adult social care is taking up more and more of Durham County Council’s budget, according to Jeff Garfoot, head of corporate, finance and commercial services.
He says this is leaving less to spend elsewhere. Mr Garfoot also says the council’s reserves are dwindling, putting the authority at increased risk if it can’t balance its books. But Mr Garfoot said that despite the pressures, Durham County Council has been able to stay in the black – unlike the central government.
He said: “In 2011/12, George Osborne the chancellor said austerity would last four years. It’s still going on. We still have a deficit in the UK of £40billion. If we did a job like the government of balancing our budget, I would have been sacked a long time ago.”
Mr Garfoot told members of Teesdale Action Partnership last week that the county council spends £850million every year. It has had to wipe out £220million since austerity began in 2011.
He explained: “With inflation, that’s more like 40 per cent of our budget. Eight years ago, the council used to spend 50 per cent of its money on children’s and older people services. Now that’s somewhere like 66 per cent. It’s eating up our funding. The demands are outstripping our resources. We will still need to make savings even if the government does not cut our budget. That’s the conundrum all councils will soon have to face.”
Mr Garfoot said the county council could plan until 2020 but would not be able to go beyond that until next year’s comprehensive spending review by central government.
However, he said under the “fair funding review” Durham County Council expects to have to make significant reductions to public health funding.
“We believe our funding will have to be cut by £19million,” Mr Garfoot said. “On the other hand, Surrey County Council will see an increase of £15million. We might have some really difficult decisions to make.”
He said three years ago there were 600 children in care in County Durham.
“Now we have 837 children in care,” added Mr Garfoot who said their care packages were significant.
He said the Government had recently asked local councils to plan for further savings of five per cent because of Brexit.
“That would mean we would have to save another £10million,” Mr Garfoot said.
However, those present at the meeting heard that in 2019/20, the county council needed to save £8.8million – but there would be no direct impact on Teesdale or frontline services elsewhere.
“We are driving out the last of the efficiencies we can,” Mr Garfoot said.
Some £1million was also being used from the reserves which amounted to more than £233million. However, Mr Garfoot said £30million were school reserves which the authority could not touch and a further £180million was earmarked and would be spent elsewhere. This sum includes £40million for a new HQ, £10million for severance packages for redundant staff and £19million for thousands of equal pay claims made against the authority.
The general reserve was £23million.
“Other councils in the North East have been overspending but if we overspent by £20million that would wipe out our reserves and we would be close to our uppers. Our reserves are only going one way,” Mr Garfoot said.
The meeting also heard that £40million had been spent on severance packages since austerity began with more than 3,000 posts at the council gone.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said local authorities were responsible for their own funding decisions “but over the next two years, we are providing councils with £90.7billion to help them meet the needs of their residents” .
