I am very angry about this headline from the Guardian:
Why my frustration?
That's because there is no way on earth that these councils have financial problems due to meeting the cost of providing an appropriate education for children with non-standard educational requirements. They have financial problems because they have been inadequately funded by central government and a council tax system that is clearly not working appropriately, especially with regard to more expensive properties.
In other words, I am suggesting that the framing of this story and headline, which appears to imply children and their parents or guardians who stand up and demand what those in their care need, is wrong because it appears to blame those children for a financial situation for which they have no responsibility at all.
If a government that said nothing before it was elected, or since, about a system of funding for both SEND and local authorities that was always designed to fail because that government is, for its own political purposes, keen that local authorities fail so that they can can be reorganised in a fashion few want or think will work, then Labour alone is responsible for this failure.
The Guardian should not be excusing Labour.
It should be apologising to children and their parents or guardians.
And it should be demanding better local democracy, instead of constructing excuses for its failure.
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May I also suggest that one of the reasons for the increase in SEND & PIP costs, and I know of what I speak, is that there are a lot of people out there ‘too sick for work but not sick enough to be treated’ by the NHS as a result of cuts in provision.
Again a result of decision making by successive governments
Much to agree with
This is exactly what I thought when I saw the article:
‘Hang on! These Councils are delivering centrally defined government policies on behalf of Westminster. These councils are the ‘local version of the central government’, regionally delivering services defined by policy approved by parliament. If they have ran out of money, it’s because they have not been given enough to run the service’.
We’ve seen this in housing for years.
So, Council’s will get the rap as our central government decides to abandon its commitments to its people. Well, to those who are not rich at least or pay for the prime ministers spectacles.
Thanks
We have to boycott the Guardian and let them know we are boycotting it. I gave up buying / subscribing to it years ago when I realised it was no longer a principled left leaning paper.
But I have to know what those I do not necessarily agree with are saying
You should read it, Richard, so we don’t have to. 😀
The Guardian certainly seems to be losing the plot these days.
I agree. I didn’t say we shouldn’t read it. I have consistently read the news media I disagree with for exactly that reason.
There is a range of views and I wouldn’t want a paper which was mono. I don’t restrict myself to one media outlet.
The Guardian’s Comment is Free readers’ opinions are a good corrective. We get, generally, articulate views and wit. Not often found on the Telegraph.
There was a Guardian View -editorial-last week, which was very similar to the main views on this blog.
I stopped reading when they printed the horrendous anti-Scottish incest comic and then spent a week trying desperately to defend it when called out.
The neoliberals have things just the way they want them.
Ask people what they are bothered about.
Potholes
Social Care
Housing waiting lists
Shortage of school places
SEND provision
Rotting council house stock
Rising council tax/delayed repairs
Who is “to blame”?
The #!@@×* council!
Somehow the consistent deliberate long-term dismantling of local infrastructure and outsourcing along with the way gov’t has offloaded responsibility onto councils while reducing financial support for them – that doesn’t seem to get talked about on omnibuses very much.
Maybe we need more exposure given to the declining real levels of support grant per head, the iniquities of regressive council tax (why IS there an upper threshold?), the declining staff numbers, the financial lunacy of outsourcing, and the way academicisation (and particularly academy CHAINS, have re-oriented education towards the enriching of academy board members rather than the needs of students while depriving parents of any say.
There must be accounts somewhere, damning spreadsheets that can be turned into political weapons fit for discussion on the omnibuses (and social media) of our deprived neighbourhoods?
Ask your local authority
That is what Freedom of Information requests are for
FOI is a slow frustrating business – I have the scars to prove it. I’m afraid I lack the knowledge to interpret the results. Checking last year’s published city council audited statement I see that RSG has been replaced (as a trial) by 100% retention of business rates although that is supposed to be revenue neutral. Then there was “government grant income” for “revenue expenditure” (a huge amount) although what the difference is between that and RSG, I haven’t a clue. One commercial, one domestic?
I’m lost within seconds of reading the relevant sections. which is probably the whole point.
The grant is the amount HMG deems it appropriate to fund the local authority by – which is much the biggest part of its income.
Ah yes, so just as with the last government, it will be councils that get the blame for going bust when in fact it is the scandalous underfunding from Westminster and the council tax system that is to blame.
I assume this explains the ridiculous announcement by Starmer of a £500 million fund for councils to access to fix the ‘pothole plague’ (note the puerile language used). Along with the statement that councils will be rated by their success or lack of it in fixing their potholes.
Except that a Lib Dem county councillor for Cambridgeshire pointed out on the Today program recently that the roads repair bill for her (and yours Richard!) county alone is £410 million. And she said about £17 billion for the UK as a whole.
So basically a performative stunt from labour to appear to be doing something which is designed to reflect blame onto the councils because central government won’t provide the resources required to do the job properly. Truly pathetic.
Agreed
“[Labour are] keen that local authorities fail so that they can can be reorganised in a fashion few want or think will work, ”
Have you written about this? I thought it was just endless kicking the can down the road rather than an attempt to recognise. I’d be interested to know what this plan is.
Single tier authorities, everywhere. Plus mayors.
I agree with the frustration that blame for underfunded Council responsibilities is being assigned to those carrying out the responsibilities not those failing to fund them properly. But the anger is directed at the Labour government: is it really the case that the problem has entirely occurred since July 4th 2024?
And while Hannah V is at liberty to choose where to read her news and which media to boycott – what other newspaper or website can she recommend for getting vaguely balanced reporting?
Labour is sting and doing nothing to alleviate the problem. It’s all theirs now in that case.
The community owned and community financed Bristol Cable does a good job, especially in investigative journalism linked to community involvement. (eg: local buses/public transport)
Its a good model.
https://thebristolcable.org/
You pay according to your means.
”The Guardian should not be excusing Labour.” Absolutely. But The Guardian played a big part in shaping the current Labour government. The Guardian did its utmost to undermine Corbyn, leading the character assassination plot and leaving no stone unturned in the political stoning that the 2016-2019 Labour leadership underwent. After all that raging activism in service of the TINA narrative (The British Establishment – which the Guardian is a part of) were REALLY rattled by the prospect of a Corbyn government), we have to assume that the current, thoroughly neoliberal, Labour Govt is precisely what The Guardian wanted. Yes, Starmer & co – the ‘adults in the room’ – are likely close to their dream government, with just a little hand-wringing from the likes of Toynbee and Freedland thrown in to give the appearance of liberal objectivity.
The recenGuardian attacks on Starmer are not a rediscovery of conscience or left wing principle. They are a desperate attempt to save LINO (under Cooper or Streeting). So that nothing changes (except a fiscal rule or two).
Thank you, Richard.
Further to what Starmer, Reeves and Reynolds told the City in opposition (the government is there to ensure all levers are pulled and in the same direction, but the private sector should deliver services and infrastructure, and delegate staff to local authorities, planning boards, oversight boards etc.), bankrupting and then consolidating local authorities makes that easier. Surplus property can also be sold cheaply to the well connected.
Not unrelated, over the week-end, catching up with friends, I got the impression that most, but not all, of the ones with overseas connections, of any sort, are thinking of or planning seriously to leave in the next few years. It was not said, but implied that it’s becoming mentally stressful to exist, not live, here.
Yesterday, a reader asked Richard where the money is paid by donors. Richard said their offices. That’s true. The real money will come after public office.
I think the public is being geared up for the scapegoating of SEN children. It’s an easy expense to cut and claim savings, and it affects few enough people for the government to get away with it. Many parents will happily turn on those taking precious resources from their darling children if told to do so by the media. Once again, the hidden costs will be ignored. Parents will be unable to work due to having to homeschool. Children who would have otherwise been productive members of society completely abandoned. Autistic and other neurodivergent people make up a disproportionate percentage of the prison population. And let’s not forget the government’s responsibility in all this. Lockdown had an enormous impact on children’s development. The government must help repair that damage. They ‘printed’ £800 billion to protect businesses during lockdown, now they need to make money available to deal with the ongoing impact.
Agreed.
The latest LINO “fast track” local government re-organisation for those counties not already done is all about cutting the head count of staff, cutting costs and reducing funding in the name of efficiency.
With the further LINO local government funding cuts this year, services like SEN
are collapsing.
No steer Keir has the power to fund correctly but is hiding behind Rachel from accounts because he does not have the balls to produce solutions.
No steer is fertilising the ground for the expansion of the Heritage Foundation to pour money into a new think tank to back Reform.
Thank you, John.
Just before the 2024 election, the Heritage Foundation hosted Lammy and Kinnock in NYC and Washington. At one of the panels, Lammy forgot that the cameras were rolling and blurted out that Labour had much in common with Trump.
The Heritage Foundation adapted the big pharma and insurer Swiss healthcare model for Mitt Romney to implement as Romneycare in Massachusetts and Obama to implement as Obamacare nationwide. Starmer’s Labour wants that model for the UK, too.
#MAGA (Make America go away)
There is an excellent well-researched case study of Somerset County Council finances in ‘The Somerset Leveller’ of March 15 2025: https://somersetleveller.co.uk/news/opinion-bailoutistan-why-are-somersets-finances-in-such-a-mess/ . Placing much of the blame on the Cameron-Osborne government and its 79% cuts to local government funding, the study compares the situation of Somerset and other Councils to the ‘debtors prison’ that EU actions have placed the Greece economy in. (The term ‘Bailoutistan’ was coined by Varoufakis.) To quote the article: ‘Despite going through a brutal decade-plus of austerity Somerset is still, effectively, insolvent.’ Citing Professor Copus of De Montfort University, the article goes on to say that It doesn’t matter who is running a Council such as Somerset, the problems are systemic and larger, unitary, authorities will do nothing to solve the problems. Nothing but a radical rethink and overhaul of local Government financing will do.
Agreed
Thank you.
True blue Buckinghamshire, a unitary authority (minus Milton Keynes) led by Martin Tett, declines to blame austerity since 2010 for the lack of services and appalling infrastructure.
A moderate degree of intelligence would provide a minibus with a classroom assistant working a bit of overtime to collect the children attending a Special Needs school (augmented by taxi, which could sometimes be shared, for children living in the opposite direction from the majority/larger clusters). Ditto in the evening with a different classroom assistant. My (Conservative-majority) LEA does so – I know because I occasionally see the minibus.
Do you really think that is all SEND is about?
For heaven’s sake go and educate yourself.
Every local authority in England is on track to go bust because of austerity introduced by Osborne, continued by his Tory successors and now being faithfully followed by no steer Keir and Rachel from accounts.
Having caused the crisis, the UK’s central government’s approach is ” it’s all your fault, nothing to do with us”.
The impending recession is going to be brutal with even more austerity. Don’t expect the ensuing riots to produce change. It will be, keep steady, more of the same to control the masses.
It’s as if they want government to fail
The systematic underfunding of local government has been going on for years. One particular “bugbear” of mine concerns the National Minimum wage. A policy I am completely in favour of
BUT
Year on year governments have raised the minimum wage above inflation whilst limiting increases in funding to local government to inflation (or less) creating huge budgeting problems for them. This was even harder when after 2010 the coalition government imposed a freeze on council tax.
No wonder we see cuts to services
Youth centres closed
Day centres closed
Libraries closed
Bin collections every 2 or 3 weeks etc…
In my area (coastal resort) the latest thing is the public toilets will no longer be free, a chqrge of 40p is coming – cashless os course!
For most people their real quality of life comes from their lived LOCAL experience.
Until this is funded properly how can this really change?
It can’t
And they know that
This is deliberate
They say productivity has to improve.
They do not umderstand this https://www.google.com/search?q=baumol%27s+law&oq=baumol%27s+law&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyCQgAEEUYORiABDIHCAEQABiABDINCAIQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAMQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAQQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAUQABiGAxiABBiKBTINCAYQABiGAxiABBiKBTIKCAcQABiABBiiBNIBCDQ2NTJqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
You have public toilets? Luxury! I cannot remember when I last saw any in the north east!
I used to work with local authorities in the north east, representing trade union members. Without fail they struggled to find the money they knew they needed to deal with serious issues among the workforce. The ones I worked with were all labour controlled. Recently I was working with a local authority much further south in a very blue area. The problem I was helping them with would cost a bit to resolve. I was amazed to hear that the reserves held by the council meant that there was absolutely no financial constraint on sorting the issue.
Local authorities have been underfunded for many years, but some have been more under funded than others.
Agreed.
Our public toilets are only staying really for the tourists. Remember what happened in some seaside areas during lockdown when public toilets were closed,
Thank you.
I have been on Chiltern trains where there aren’t any and found a queue at Marylebone, facilities closed at Baker Street and a queue at St Pancras.
A friend said there weren’t any on the train from Derby to St Pancras last Saturday.
Following the money: Blame SEND, defund it, break it, privatise it, profit from it.
My ex sub-editor partner and I asked ourselves whether this was just a rogue sub writing a misleading headline for clickbait, but no, the entire article makes no mention of the context in which the SEN overspend exists.
Hampshire, for example has an overall budget of £2.8 billion. Their website seems deliberately designed to hide the realities of Government cuts, but I find it hard to imagine that SEN is the only area under financial pressure. Indeed, they do admit that total cuts have amounted to £640 million ‘since austerity began’.
The real message the article should highlight is the disparity between legally obligated service provision and the funding available from Westminster to fulfil those obligations (not just in SEN). And of course there is a legal limit on council tax increases which ensures further financial pressure. Reporters really should dig deeper!