Is anyone worried about their council going bust?

[PassingStranger]

It was on the news this morning that alot of councils are very close to going bust.
Services are having to be cut again and council tax going up?

What would happen if your council went bust?
Is there a way to find out how your council is doing?
Anyone worried like me? Xx

Very interesting thanks.

Leisure Centres are so needed. People keep fit there and it's good for mental health too.
If they close people's fitness etc would suffer surely bringing another problem? Xx 😪

Ours has gone bust already but I don't notice any difference so don't worry is my advice.

I don't think my council is in danger of going bankrupt - not just yet anyway.
Depending on who you listen to or what you read, councils are in dire financial straits because of cuts in central government funding/high demand for adult social care and child safegurding care/inflation/mismanagement of money by the councils, including failed or unnecessary "vanity projects". Or maybe a combination of all of those?
This digresses somewhat from the OP's point of this thread, but I am livid that, for whatever reasons councils are in trouble, it's you and me that suffer in terms of higher council tax, (to the maximum allowed, 'though some councils seem to have been given the ok to go up to a 10% rise, or maybe even more), yet services will also be slashed. Paying more for less.
And there doesn't seem to be a damn thing we can do about it, except choose carefully who we vote for, or get involved in local government politics ourselves.
I remember many years ago, (1990?), there were violent protests about the Poll Tax, and it was subsequently abolished.
I would never advocate for violence or rioting, but we, (myself included), don't seem to have the will/stomach/wherewithal to challenge what is happening.
Or is there something we can do that I am unaware of or haven't thought of?

Our Council, Woking Borough Council is massively in debt, they wanted to close the swimming pool, but decided to keep it going for another year, trying to close Day Centres, public toilets are to close, recreation grounds are also in jeopardy. Our Council Tax is set to rise 10%.

I suspect that is because those areas have relatively few residents (with resultingly low demand for domestic services) and quite a high revenue stream from businesses.

I work for my local council and they are asking for voluntary redundancy (for now). Due to inadequate funding from central government we are in deficit due to ever increasing need for child and adult social care and sen services. The 4.99% increase in council tax won't cover outgoings. I work in an area with statutory deadlines so (hopefully) my job's not at risk but we are already managing an increasing workload with decreasing staff. Hopefully if labour are voted in in May things will change and money will be directed at services that actually need it not vanity projects/big business/central london etc

A lot of councils have been put under immense strain because of back-dated pay claims over supposedly unequal historic pay. Lots of workers are keen to compare themselves to refuse collectors (or whatever benchmark they used) with no thought as to why the latter may be paid more - it's just the nebulous concept of 'work of equal value'. Glasgow is a good example of that.

And then if you want more specifics: Nottingham Council illegally spent £18m of ring-fenced housing funding on things it wasn't allowed to.

Birmingham's leader seems to have done friendly deals with certain unions which turned out to breach equal pay legislation so it gave rise to yet more backdated claims. And much of their spending seemed to lack oversight.

Thurrock Council gambled away hundreds of millions of pounds on risky investments.

So, yeah, it's all the government's fault. But what about local oversight and local accountability?

Out of interest these massive tower blocks I presume are for social housing or is that not the case.

Yep, mine too. I do wonder what the effects will be.

Wow! That would make such a difference in my pocket ☹️.

This is happening in mine too - a mixture of social and private flats. What’s alarming is that almost every last one of the match box flat is in BAND E. I don’t know how 🤷🏽‍♀️.

By the time they’ve taxed their way out of debt, many residents will have fled.

This is a direct result of Tory policy that drastically cut funding to local governments, safe in the knowledge its arms length from Westminster blame. Shame on them.

Some are but nowhere near enough.

They're mostly being sold to overseas buyers who then charge extortionate rents.

The problem is also (as always) the schools, doctors surgeries, dental surgeries and the roads are all jam packed.

R4 were discussing this matter this morning.

A LGA spokesman says 70%+ of council budgets were going on 4 things

Safeguarding children
Adult social care
Temporary housing
SEN costs of children, specifically the transportation costs to get them to and from school.

These 4 areas don't impact the majority of taxpayers. His words, they care about bins, potholes and libraries as they're the services they use.

My job means I have insight into 3 of those 4 areas. The costs, and the budgets available to these areas, staggers me. E.g. I arranged an SEN child, who isn't physically disabled, getting to and from school. The taxi fare was £25 total. Because I had to use LA approved transport, the cost was £110 total.

That can't be right. How are these tenders being accepted?

I also work for an East Midlands LA. Budget cuts are obscene our tenants are really suffering

Same as my council! Endless roadworks over the same stretches of road and you have to pay a fortune for the privilege of parking your car even though it's taken you an hour sat in traffic to get there... when you do get in, there are hardly any useful shops other than if you want a new phonecase or vape or a coffee because the councils rates are too high for shops 🙄

Ours take so much money and give nothing. The streets are broken and potholed, constant digging of roads, always doing low traffic schemes that seem to help abled people only. What are they doing with all the money we keep giving them? It's shocking really isn't it?

In 2010 David Cameron and George Osborne said they were going to cut public funding as have subsequent Tory governments ever since. If you voted for them then you're to blame! No good fucking crying about it now.

Same ☹️

One of my first jobs was working for a council run housing home. It was a lovely place to work but the staff there were one of the first tranch of claimants of “equal pay”, and yes they compared themselves to bin men, and why wouldn’t they? Being a bin man is a job anyone can do and involved little to no skill or experience yet they are paid handsomely for their admittedly dirty work, because they’re men. Caring is a vocation that few can do well, requires immense people skills, compassion and can be very dirty work; it also requires 24 hour working, yet carers have historically earned peanuts because they’re mostly women (although carers then earn more that carers now!)

What the council do in light of these claims? They closed the nursing homes, thousands and thousands of them. Pushing care in to the private sector lining the pockets of many private individuals and turning vulnerable people in to the cash cows. Who pays the bill for that? The councils. Who’s paying the price for that now? We all are.

Women deserved to be paid as much as men in a comparable role. Carers certainly deserved to be paid more than bin men.

Nope as my council seem to have a nice little earner. They have taken 2 years worth of pension payments off teachers and not put them into their pension pots. About £3m per month earning interest for them! They have a nice little side line going on while all the teachers have no pension payments going in!

Our council is already bankrupt.

As PP said the money is going on services most people don't see like SEN support, temporary housing, social care. The central government has cut funding to local authorities by about 80% since 2013. So yes they are raising council tax and cutting the non statutory services to attempt to close the gap.

In some cases this isn't due to the government,

Birmingham for example - massive equal pay claim which they fought and has bankrupted them.

Frankly having worked for a council there is still so much wastage and the old 'using up the budget before April' type stuff. The one I worked at was so poorly managed.

As per pp something needs to be done the transport costs for sen children. It's not sustainable and the taxpayer should not be funding this in the way it's currently done. Something has to give. There isn't enough money.

I've just applied for an arts/markets type role in LA. Would I be mad to gamble and leave a 110@% secure role with around £500 less per year wage. This thread has made me think hard now that it really is a non essential role in the eyes of the public and our council tax is already going up 9.9% this year and we will still have a deficit across the borough.