Unfortunately, it seems it is too much to expect a Secretary of State for Local Government with ambitions for the sector, who seeks to create a respectful partnership with local elected representatives for the benefit of all in our communities.

Instead we see daily attacks on the work of councils and councillors – part of a clear strategy to ramp up a rhetorical smokescreen to cover the dire local government financial settlement imposed by the Government. Never a man to let a fact stand in the way of a good argument, Pickles has set about creating stories and stirring up nonsense in an attempt to distract people from the consequences of his own actions.

Councils are wasting taxpayers’ money on thousands of “non-jobs” like “press officers tasked with spinning propaganda”, a press release from the 70-strong CLG press office claims, without a hint of irony. Distorted figures reported in the media suggest an “explosion” of non-jobs under the Labour Government with three million people employed by councils. Never mind that this figure includes teachers and police forces, or that “non-jobs” apparently include the role of assistant director of adult services, responsible for the care of thousands of elderly and vulnerable people.

If only councils shared back offices, they could protect the frontline, claims Pickles, implying that only the lazy and the feckless will have to cut services. The inconvenient truths, that there are 200 examples of councils who already share back office functions and that any such arrangements take time to agree and roll out, are sidestepped.

Let’s try and establish some facts. Councils face a 28% cut in their funding over the next four years. This overall figure is actually worse than the topline suggests, since the decision was taken by CLG Ministers taken to frontload the cuts so that they are most severe in year one. No sooner was the settlement for each local authority announced in December than councils had just months to put together and agree budgets for the start of the new financial year. In 2011-12, total formula grant funding to councils falls by 12%, an overall funding gap of £6.5bn for that year alone. The sheer scale and speed of the funding cuts has left many councils with little room for manoeuvre. They will have no choice but to cut some services and lose jobs, since their ability to plan in reductions, scale back the workforce through natural wastage or implement more innovative service models has been scuppered.

Labour councillors came into politics to improve public services, and they know that the cuts the government is forcing on them will actually damage them. They have been working day and night over the last weeks and months to try their hardest to limit the impact of these cuts on the services they value and the communities they know and love. Labour councils have passed budgets that have sought to balance the need to protect the vulnerable and pass as little of the cuts dealt by central government onto their residents. Analysis has shown that while Labour councils have been forced to make greater cuts in cash terms (£834m compared to cuts to Tory councils of £589m), they have shed 25% fewer jobs (36,016 compared to Tory councils’ 48,124). So for each £1m cut made by Tory councils around 81 jobs are being lost, compared with just 43 jobs lost per £1m cut by Labour councils – almost twice as many. Far from making “politically motivated cuts”, an accusation fiercely made by Pickles and his team, Labour councils are actually protecting staff and services as best they can. Indeed, Labour councils have been dealt a heavier blow, and it seems it is Tory councils who are using the opportunity to cut disproportionately.

It has been suggested that Labour councillors could refuse to pass budgets and renounce responsibility for local finances. No Labour councillor who cares about and defends their community would contemplate this – illegal budgets failed in the 1980s and would today ultimately result in Pickles intervening to send in officers who would set a budget. This would cost the communities much more in the long run and take the spending decisions out of the hands of locally elected representatives who know their communities.

While Labour in local government is on the frontline of the government’s onslaught, it is imperative that all parts of the Labour movement recognise the reality of the situation and direct our ire on the real culprits. Our colleagues in Parliament, in our CLPs and in the wider trade union movement must continue to engage with and support our councillors, and together we can ensure the public know who is to blame when the local library shuts down or when the Sure Start centre across the road closes its doors. Let’s turn our anger into action, let’s make sure that when the next opportunity arises, this Government cannot wriggle free of the consequences of its own actions. 

Photo: Victoria Peckham