'Real pain' to come for millions

COUNCILS have warned of “real pain” to come for millions of people as they cut services to cope with a 26 per cent reduction in Government funding.

Thousands of town hall jobs are likely to go in Yorkshire over the next four years and the drastic reduction in funding could tempt some authorities to increase council tax to fill the gap after next year’s freeze on bills.

Transport grants to councils will be cut by nearly 30 per cent, posing questions over how well they will be able to fund bus services and repair roads already blighted by potholes in many areas.

Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles said councils should merge departments and share senior officers to cut administration costs and warned he would not take “seriously” anyone who claimed major savings could be made without hitting vital services.

There was some positive news for councils as they were given much more freedom over how they spend their remaining money – and the Government pledged 2bn to help tackle the growing crisis of the cost of caring for the elderly population.

But the chairman of the Local Government Association, Baroness Margaret Eaton – like Mr Pickles, a former leader of Bradford Council – laid bare the impact the cuts will have.

She 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.”

Mr Pickles told the Yorkshire Post councils should “cut deep” into administration spending to protect vital services: “If you’re telling me local authorities can’t take just over seven per cent of their costs each year in the way the private sector has been taking out much larger sums each year from the centre, I can’t take that seriously,” he said.

Councils welcomed the extra freedom to spend money and the simplification of the funding system, Hull being one of 16 areas testing the pooling of resources between local authorities, police and health services to tackle social problems.

Mark Burke, partner and regional head of Grant Thornton’s Government Infrastructure Advisory team in Yorkshire, said local government was “one of the real losers” of the settlement. While Government funding will be cut by 26 per cent, Ministers insist council budgets should only fall by 14 per cent because the revenue from council tax will be unaffected.

Leeds City Council leader Keith Wakefield said: “The spending review presents us with a significant challenge, but this isn’t the end to public services in Leeds, it only demonstrates the importance of showing strong civic responsibility to ensure we protect services for the young, the elderly and vulnerable people.

“It also presents a very serious challenge to the future of housing in our city and that will be one of the biggest issues we will have to tackle.”

He added: “Leeds City Council has already made efficiency savings of over 100m in five years, but it is now clear that, in future, some services will have to be reduced further and others stopped.”

The chief executive of Kirklees Council, Adrian Lythgo added yesterday: “Clearly, with such a significant percentage of our overall funding being cut, a significant impact on services and a number of cuts to traditional areas of work will now be unavoidable.”