ISLE of Wight Council says it is disappointed with the Government’s planned investment in public services over the next three years, details of which which were presented to Parliament by the Chancellor of the Exchequer this week.
The Comprehensive Spending Review covers the Government’s priorities and spending plans for the next three financial years 2008/9; 2009/10; 2010/11 and outlines the overall investment in Public Services over that period.
Although significant investment is going into the Health Service and Education, local services delivered by Councils such as the Isle of Wight will only receive an overall 1% increase in real terms ( after assumed inflation at 2%) in each of the next three years.
For Isle of Wight Council, this gives a potential increase in resources, before Council Tax, of only £500k per year to help pay for increased service demands and improvements in services.
The Government also assumes that Councils will achieve 3% each year in value for money efficiency savings on top of any other savings that they have already made and that Council tax increases will be a lot less than 5% over the next three years.
Although these last two assumptions are in line with the Council’s overall Financial Policy of keeping Council tax levels as low as practicable and achieving value for money for local people the overall Review will put enormous pressure on Local Council’s to cut services and/or increase Council Tax levels above inflation.
The actual Revenue Support Grant settlement which details individual Council’s resources for next years budget (2008/9) will not be announced until late November or Early December. There is no guarantee that the IOWC will even get the 1% in real terms uplift as this is an average for all Councils. Changes to grant methodology and grant calculations can still make the position even worse.
Isle of Wight Council Leader Councillor David Pugh said: “There are many detailed assumptions and policies that will require further clarification but in overall terms it is a very disappointing settlement for local services. The Local Government Association describes it as the worst settlement for Local Government in a decade.
“Despite the very poor settlement ,however, the Council will continue to pursue a robust Budget Strategy for the next three years that delivers real improvements to local people, directs resources there are to priorities, achieves value for money and maintains low council tax increases.”
