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

I agree with you to a degree @mammaia but that situation arose as a consequence of the Tories slashing central govt funding to local authorities year on year post-2010 and basically saying jog on and sort yourselves out.

What will happen to kids in SEN schools, particularly those that are independent? We're in a similar situation and likely going to require an independent specialist I the next year or so

It’s a rule that applies to all councils @EmmaEmerald - this document from the Local Government Association (written for councillors) explains the rules of council finance in more detail:

Local Gov Finance

I work for my local council, and we are not in danger of going bankrupt, but have had to raise council tax and cut some budgets/ services to balance the books. It’s a fairly affluent, tourist area so the high street is still busy and I’d guess there a lot of houses in the higher council tax bands.

Like others have said, it’s the cost of adult social care that is rising steeply, but most people just think about bins, roads, libraries, and perhaps schools. I often wonder how many people who complain about council tax rises also think you shouldn’t have to sell your house to pay for care - who do they think will pay for it?

@DontBeAPrickDarren

Agreed. My post wasn't meant to say this was the only reason. Yes central government cuts have not helped, granted. However there are a lot of councils run by those who shouldn't really be in charge. They wouldn't be heading up a multi million private sector business, but he in again it's not their money they're throwing away!

Not to mention they're paid disgusting salaries to go with it despite she failure on their parts.

@mammaia i don’t disagree re mismanagement but we had successful district councils that were financially doing fine but the county council was in financial difficulty. Against public opinion, the conservatives (Robert Jenric) authorised a unitary authority and within 10 months they were saying they’re close to announcing a section 114, having absorbed all the district council money. They’re now cutting theatres, sports facilities and country parks plus many, many services that had all been run by the district councils very well. Funding has also dropped from central government and they’ve just received notice that rubbish collections need to return to 2 weekly collections from 3 weekly (which has been surprisingly fine - I say as a family of 5). They hadn’t budgeted for that announcement and it’ll cost £40m that they need to magically find.

@EllieQ Thanks, I thought it might apply to all councils but have they chosen to adopt it or was it forced on them? That's why I wondered if a campaign to someone other than the local MP might be in order.

i will at your links tomorrow.

Re things going out to tender - just like with NHS supplies - it's a corruption problem with all parties and it's so key to our rotten systems.

How do we find another George Lansbury?!

I’m banging on about social care because it’s the area that my previous employer is about to go bust over.

In his recent review of children’s social care Josh McAllister wrote eloquently about profiteering in the residential sector - see 129-130 here:
<a class="break-all" href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20230308122535mp_/childrenssocialcare.independent-review.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/The-independent-review-of-childrens-social-care-Final-report.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="blank">https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20230308122535mp/childrenssocialcare.independent-review.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/The-independent-review-of-childrens-social-care-Final-report.pdf

but I think the government pretty much ignored this in its response

Tangential but why are people from overseas allowed to buy property here - and then leave it empty. Loads of people need places to live.
Didn't Turkey or somewhere say that only Turkish residents could own property in Turkey - and took all the rest back for their own citizens.
Doubt that would actually happen here tho

@mammaia "Not to mention the billions most councils spent buying and investing in huge commercial portfolios, oversaw by people who hadn't the faintest idea of commercial property . Portfolios which have now tanked in value and these repayments are massive. "

this most of Croydon's bankruptcy issue (Labour).

I might lose my job

I worry and how will this be resolved or what can actually be done about it? Surely adult social care bill is only going to increase, same with SEN transport

Our council has just spent 9million buying a near derelict shopping centre should probably.

Yeah ours is in trouble. It’s an area with a lot of deprivation and they have already closed our sports centre and pool, the library in our town and the next are to shut and they they are shutting the registry office too. These are imo basic services that a large town should have.

Our council seems to spend vast VAST sums of money (billions) on completely unimportant vanity projects and then slices essential services such as education to the bone. It's time that councils were run like profit making businesses. Someone recently described working at the council as "feet up central" and I can't think of a better term. I've had the pleasure of dealing with various departments at a number of local authorities and the lack of/speed of work is astonishing.

It's not just the Tories. I live in Wales and my county council (well run, not at all wasteful) are having to hike council tax and cut the education budget because the Welsh Government's settlement is insufficient. Apparently the formula used in Wales (not sure how it would be calculated in England) gives extra weight to areas with larger proportions of young families. So the councils with aging populations not only find themselves landed with the cost of social care but they also have smaller government grants per capita.

Our council tax went up 10% last year going up 10% again in April. Our payment will be over 3.5k for the coming year.

Bins collection every four weeks have been for years.

Education cuts 10% last year, coming year another 5%. Big arguments in chambers about four day school week.

Councillors getting a pay rise in line with inflation.

Our shiny new council offices £45 million built a few years ago have been mostly empty since covid March 2020.

We've paid 500k for two electric bin wagons we can't use because they won't last the distance of any route.

Our pension payments are 🙈

Our social care for the elderly is what is breaking us more than anything. We sold off all the retirement homes to save money, it's still not enough.

I'm pretty sure that the people who voted for Sadiq Khan are unlikely to have voted for Brexit or for the Tories.

My council already went bust before I moved here. I can't see a difference between them and the council where I used to live.

I expect the rule about use of capital funding for capital projects is set out in one of the Local Government Finance Acts of Parliament.

The Local Government Finance Act 1992 set up Council Tax as a replacement for the Poll Tax, for example:

1992 Act

Now to pop to the city centre it will cost you £5000 an hour.

Liar.

One of the councils going bust is planning to decrease the frequency of its bin collections

Our council went bust. Nothing changed. Not that I noticed anyway.

Well I know ours will by the end of the financial year according to finance director. Not sure that me worrying will make any difference though. If ours was more efficient and wasted less then they might do better though. I put in an FOI to didscover that the SEND dept had 390 complaints in the first ten months of 2023 and paid out over £100k in recompense. So they could save money if they did the job to an acceptable standard in a timely manner but they seem to prefer avoiding doing their job, giving excuses and then answering complaints and paying recompense instead.

I wonder if the councils would be in better shape if they hadn't been forced to sell off the council housing. If they had council housing then they wouldn't have to pay so much in rent to private landlords or extortionate amounts for temporary accommodation.

Ours is cutting services - the latest is removing subsidised buses for children who live 2.99 miles from school (they have to provide for 3 miles).

Thankfully ds has left school now or he would have been walking the shortest 2.99 mile route to school through an unlit country park, next to a river with no barriers, regularly in spate for a couple of months each year.

It is only a matter of time before someone’s child ends up in it.