• Home
  • About
  • Subscribe
  • LATIF
  • Conferences
  • Dashboard
  • Edit My Profile
  • Log In
  • Logout
  • Register
  • Edit this post

Room 151

  • 151 BRIEF

    What's New?

  • London CIV appoints Dean Bowden as CEO

    August 18, 2022

  • Coventry secures over £115m of funding to decarbonise transport system

    August 18, 2022

  • Bexley Pension Fund appoints responsible investment consultant

    August 17, 2022

  • Leeds’ £120m levelling up bids offers ‘transformational change’

    August 16, 2022

  • Social care workforce crisis ‘requires government intervention’

    August 15, 2022

  • Consultation opens on future of IFRS 9 statutory override

    August 12, 2022

  • Treasury
  • Technical
  • Funding
  • Resources
  • LGPS
  • Development
  • 151 News
  • Blogs
    • David Green
    • Agent 151
    • Dan Bates
    • Richard Harbord
    • Stephen Sheen
    • James Bevan
    • Steve Bishop
    • Cllr John Clancy
    • David Crum
    • Graham Liddell
    • Ian O’Donnell
    • Jackie Shute
  • Interviews
  • Briefs

Working with our hands tied

0
  • by Guest
  • in Blogs · Recent Posts · Resources
  • — 4 Dec, 2013

Alex Colyer is finance director at South Cambridgeshire District Council

With Christmas on the horizon, we have the next settlement to look forward to and news of how much Revenue Support Grant (RSG) we’ll be losing in 2015/16: it looks likely it will be around a third. We know we’re losing a quarter of the RSG in 2014/15 and with the Institute of Fiscal Studies warning that any new
government is unlikely to do anything different, it’s time to get the medium-term financial plan out again and think about how to manage the funding gap. At South Cambridgeshire District Council, we’re considering what finances will look like without any RSG at all. After all, the only realistic assumption you
can make at this stage is that by 2019/20, districts will be operating without it.

With us, that starts with a revamped efficiency programme, reducing costs wherever possible. We don’t have a lot of discretionary services, so there are limited opportunities for driving down costs. But one area where we’ve identified opportunities for pooling resources with our neighbours is waste management. There is scope for joint working with the county, other local districts and our waste disposal partners from the private sector to eke out some big savings. That’s indicative of a range of things we’re looking at to try and plug the hole left by the RSG. But saving on waste doesn’t put us in the clear. We’re a pretty high growth area and our additional council tax yield won’t cover our additional cost base. By the time we get to 2019/20, we see another deficit developing from changes in our demography and the related costs.

So we’re also looking at commercial ventures to create investment returns as part of the medium-term strategy. We’ve set up a company and are looking at private sector housing schemes which will involve buying properties and/or managing third party properties to generate income.
We’re also looking into launching a property company, county-wide, that would own all of the public sector assets in Cambridgeshire. Each of the organisations that puts its property assets into the company would own shares or units in the new body and share in the profits. That would make for much smoother governance, quicker decision-making and the company would be significantly more nimble
in the marketplace when it wants to develop, sell off assets or work with the private sector.

This all begins to focus the mind on where we’re ultimately heading and what will become of district councils. I see, hear and am part of discussions three or four times every week now about how we and our neighbours can work closer together, at one level or another. It’s inevitable that districts in particular will radically change shape over the coming years as the funding crunch gets closer. The question remains, will councils do it in a piecemeal, service-by-service approach, or will we move towards larger strategic arrangements, impacting sovereignty?

Ceding control has never been easy in local government and anything shared or merged requires a marriage of the willing, but the enormous financial pressure we’re witnessing at the moment has forced people to come to the table in a way we have never seen before. From where I’m sitting, local government’s response to austerity has been nothing short of excellent but I think it’s government’s turn now to provide stability in policy making so that we can genuinely plan for the medium- and long-term with our neighbours and partners. Hopefully, in the coming settlement and Autumn Statement we won’t see the sort of tinkering from government that has made life unnecessarily hard for us in recent years.

This article was first published in Room151 Quarterly magazine. Didn’t receive a copy? Local authority heads of finance, resources, procurement and chief execs can email subscriptions@room151.co.uk for a complimentary subscription.

Share

You may also like...

  • Why infrastructure assets are the ugly ducklings of capital accounting 28th Apr, 2022
  • ESG is an ‘essential’ consideration for money market instruments 23rd Nov, 2021
  • Funding structures and old tech threaten recruitment of best financial talent 9th Jul, 2021
  • LGPS webinar: Central bank management of bond purchasing could affect all asset classes 1st Mar, 2021

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

  • 151 BRIEFS – WHAT’s NEW?

    • London CIV appoints Dean Bowden as CEO
    • Coventry secures over £115m of funding to decarbonise transport system
    • Bexley Pension Fund appoints responsible investment consultant
    • Leeds’ £120m levelling up bids offers ‘transformational change’
    • Social care workforce crisis ‘requires government intervention’
  • Room151’s LGPS Roundtables

    Biodiversity
    Valuations & Risk
    LGPS Women

  • Room151’s LGPS Roundtables

    Biodiversity
    LGPS Women
    Valuations & Risk
  • Latest tweets

    Room151 10 hours ago

    Liverpool faces further government intervention as commissioners find ‘whole-council failure’: The levelling up secretary has announced that he is “minded to” expand intervention at Liverpool City Council by transferring the authority’s financial… dlvr.it/SWvgGc pic.twitter.com/cB7YeHZ9lE

    Room151 1 day ago

    Recovery position: withholding tax and the LGPS: Partner Content: Paul Sprenger from WTax talks to Room151 about how Local Government Pension Scheme funds could be missing out on millions of pounds of withholding tax recovery opportunities.… dlvr.it/SWsTfQ pic.twitter.com/z6aVMcaqHe

    Room151 2 days ago

    Treasurer societies favour permanent extension to IFRS 9 statutory override: Two treasurer society presidents have indicated their preference for the current five-year IFRS 9 statutory override to be made permanent following the government’s latest… dlvr.it/SWr3G4 pic.twitter.com/MGf9M5zC8Q

    Room151 3 days ago

    Luton Borough Council faces ‘grave’ £10m overspend: Luton Borough Council faces a £10m overspend in its 2022/23 budget which poses a “serious risk” to the authority’s financial sustainability. A report by Dev Gopal, director of finance, revenues[...] dlvr.it/SWmynD pic.twitter.com/ETDd7sQA48

    Room151 3 days ago

    Luton Borough Council faces ‘grave’ £10m overspend: Luton Borough Council faces a £10m overspend in its 2022/23 budget which poses a “serious risk” to the authority’s financial sustainability. room151.co.uk/funding/luton-… pic.twitter.com/XvyTZckW6m

    Room151 1 week ago

    LATIF/FDs’ Summit ‘on course to be biggest yet’: Room151’s flagship event – the Local Authority Treasurers Investment Forum (LATIF) and FDs’ Summit – is on course to be the biggest yet, with more than 200 delegates expected. Combining[...] dlvr.it/SWSDrL pic.twitter.com/f8FXzcAdWB

    Room151 1 week ago

    ‘Local government treated worse than any other part of public sector’: Clive Betts, chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, talks to Mike Thatcher about lack of progress on levelling up, pork-barrel politics and why local government… dlvr.it/SWRk1L pic.twitter.com/Jpw0BsOsy3

    Room151 1 week ago

    Which LGPS pools and funds are attending the LGPS Investment Forum on Nov 2 & the LGPS Private Markets Forum on Nov 1st? Answer here: lnkd.in/eDHU8tuy pic.twitter.com/D3gd63Rh7F

    Room151 1 week ago

    LGPS and levelling up: nothing to fear but fear itself: There have been a number of objections to government plans for LGPS funds to invest 5% of their assets in local projects. But George Graham says these objections can be[...] dlvr.it/SWL7vt pic.twitter.com/ebwBEkZTy4

  • Register to become a Room151 user

  • Previous story Treasurers weekly briefing #4
  • Next story Talking Point: Economic regeneration and council risk

© Copyright 2022 Room 151. Typegrid Theme by WPBandit.

0 shares