Nottingham City Council’s request for Exceptional Financial Support (EFS) has been agreed in principle by the government.
This does not mean that we are being bailed out by the government or that the government is granting us extra funding. It merely is permission to use our own money in a different way. It will allow us to use the money raised by selling off property and assets, to cover the day to day running costs of the council.
While this will help achieve a balanced budget for this year and next year, it is not a long-term solution. More importantly it does not address the fundamental underfunding of local government by the Conservative Government.
The £66.1 million over two years we’ll receive via EFS is still less than the money we have lost each year in government funding since 2013/14, which is £100 million less than it was a decade ago; Tens of millions of pounds of funding for services has been lost under this Conservative Government.
Since 2010/11 the number of cuts in local government have disproportionately affected the poorest areas. Nottingham has lost the equivalent of £950 per resident from cuts, Oxfordshire only £96, nearly ten times less.
The Conservative Government has decimated local communities, cities, and regions across the country. They have brought local government to the brink of total collapse. EFS, while providing a brief relief simply will not work long term.
We need reform for local government financing. We have and will continue to lobby government and speak publicly about the need for this.
What the country needs the most is a Labour Government that can change the country for the better and work to correct the damage caused by successive Conservative Governments.
Under this current government and under a future Labour Government we will continue to be ambitious for Nottingham.
We will continue to create more jobs and build more houses. We will continue to support our vulnerable children and adults and house those who are homeless.
We will continue to represent the people who elected us and ensure that their voices are listened to.
What we won’t do is stop making sure that everyone knows that blame for the crisis in local government funding lies at the feet of the Conservative Government and their decade long programme of strangling the life out of local government.