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

Room 151

  • 151 BRIEF

    What's New?

  • Slough welcomes commitment that Office for Local Government ‘will not be a burden’

    June 30, 2022

  • Homes England agrees strategic partnership with two authorities

    June 29, 2022

  • Soaring inflation and pay pressures to add £3.6bn to council budgets

    June 28, 2022

  • Underfunded social care reforms could ‘exacerbate workforce pressures’

    June 27, 2022

  • Nottingham City Council leader labels proposed intervention as ‘disappointing’

    June 27, 2022

  • Government preparing to intervene in Nottingham City Council

    June 23, 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

General Election: Manifesto pledges for local government finance

0
  • by Colin Marrs
  • in 151 News · Resources
  • — 23 Apr, 2015

Version 2With the launch of the Scottish National Party’s 2015 general election manifesto this week, all the main parties have now made their pitches to voters. But a hung parliament is odds on, making it difficult to work out which policies will survive the post-poll horse trading. Room151 takes a look at the main pledges affecting local government funding which could end up on the statute books.

Labour Party
Labour’s manifesto is desperate to convince the voters that it can be trusted with the nation’s finances. Anyone in local government hoping for easier times under Labour may be disappointed – the party has already committed to slashing £500m a year from local government budgets from 2016/17 through initiatives including shared services and scrapping the New Homes Bonus. The manifesto confirmed that the Department of Communities and Local Government will be one of the departments facing cuts in spending.

Key pledges

  • Multi-year budgets to allow authorities to “plan ahead on the basis of need in their area and protect vital services”
  • Devolving power and £30bn of funding to “city and county regions” over schools, health care, policing, skills, housing and transport
  • Scrapping the Free Schools programme
  • Private schools required to form partnerships with state schools as a condition of continued business rates relief
  • Powers for councils to introduce higher council tax on empty properties
  • A new generation of garden cities to help reach housebuilding target of 200,000 a year
  • Incentivising councils to work with police and probation services to identify and deal with young offenders
  • Introducing a  ‘mansion tax’ on properties worth more than £2m to help raise £2.5bn a year for the NHS
  • Creating public accounts committees, so that every pound spent by local bodies creates value for money for local taxpayers.

Conservative Party
The Tories’ document is a mix of boasts about their record in coalition government, promises to finish the job of fiscal consolidation and a few goodies lobbed in for good measure. Chancellor George Osborne’s Budget earlier this year has already indicated that times will continue to be tough for local authorities, and there is no reason to change that assessment in the light of their election manifesto.

Key pledges

  • Funding new council housebuilding, a new brownfield regeneration fund and discounts to enable housing association tenants to buy their own homes by forcing councils to sell their most expensive homes
  • Devolving powers over economic development, social care and transport to large cities choosing to have elected mayors. More skills and planning powers for the Mayor of London.
  • Allowing councils to retain a higher proportion of business rates revenue
  • More growth deals with local councils
  • Reviewing ring-fenced grants “to give councils more flexibility to support local services”
  • Major review of business rates by the end of 2015 to institute a new system by 2017
  • Opening at least 500 new free schools
  • Continuing to co-locate public bodies and sell off surplus property, giving councils at least a 10% stake in public sector land sales in their area
  • Funding 200,000 new “starter homes” by removing requirement for developers to provide affordable housing as part of planning permissions
  • Supporting garden cities “in places where communities want them”
  • Encouraging shared services between and within councils

Liberal Democrats
Despite getting into some well-documented trouble over its 2010 election promises, the party has released the most detailed of the three main parties’ manifestos. It is positioning itself as an ideal coalition partner for either the Conservatives or Labour. Of the three, it is the most positive in terms of promises on local government spending.

Key pledges

  • Introducing land value tax to replace business rates, and potentially other taxes.
  • Extending the principle of “digital by default” to local government
  • Creating a ‘mansion tax’ on homes worth over £2m with a banded structure, like council tax
  • Working with local authorities to tackle fraud and error
  • Introducing a “community trigger” to enable the public to require a review of poorly-performing services
  • Pooling of personal budgets to bring local services together
  • Full pooling of NHS and council budgets by 2018
  • Five-year investment plan for bus funding
  • Building at least 10 new garden cities, with five linked by a new Cambridge to Oxford train line
  • New government-backed housing investment bank to provide long-term capital and attract finance for major new settlements
  • Reducing powers of ministers to interfere in local government decisions
  • Removing the requirement to hold local referenda for council tax rises
  • More city deals to devolve more funding to local authorities and local enterprise partnerships
  • More financial responsibility for councils, building on the work of the Independent Commission on Local Government Finance
  • Pay increases for public sector staff

Other parties

Key Green pledges

  • Returning further education colleges to control by local government.
  • Introducing a “right to rent”, where councils step in to help those in difficulty with their mortgage to rent their home
  • Providing 500,000 social rented homes by increasing social housing budget from £1.5bn a year to £6bn a year, removing borrowing caps from councils
  • Ending the Right to Buy programme and opposing new arm’s length management organisations
  •  Two new council tax bands for higher value properties
  • Replacing council tax and business rates with land value taxation
  • Removing requirement for council tax referenda and allow councils to conduct revaluations
  • Ensuring grant funding is sufficient to pay for all statutory services
  • Allowing councils to set local business rates and then distribute council and business tax receipts between each other on a basis decided by an independent commission
  • Allowing local authorities to levy new local taxes, such as local tourist taxes, empty homes levies, supermarket taxes or workplace parking levies, and to set rates for and keep part or all of some taxes collected locally, such as income tax and VAT.
  • Allowing local authorities freedom to set local fines, fees and charges.
  • Scrapping the New Homes Bonus and add the money to the Revenue Support Grant
  • Setting up a fund of up to £5 bn over the Parliament to buy out existing PFI projects

 

UKIP key pledges

  • Bringing health and social care together under the control of the NHS
  • Allowing councils to keep the New Homes Bonus beyond six years on brownfield sites
  • Identifying long-term dormant land held by local government so it can be released for affordable developments
  • Funding for regeneration in coastal areas
  • Providing government loans to allow council to renovate poor housing stock and convert empty commercial property into residential accommodation
  • Scrap the cabinet system of governance in favour of committee systems
  • Cutting excessive allowances for councillors, slashing “excessive” pay deals and limiting the number of highly-paid council employees

SNP

Despite an overall pledge to end “austerity” the SNP manifesto has nothing specifically to say about local government funding.

Share

You may also like...

  • Councils ‘becoming more involved in direct delivery of housing’ 28th Feb, 2022
  • Levelling up’s ‘tyranny of competitive funding’ 25th Mar, 2022
  • CIPFA under pressure to publish fraud hub report 26th Apr, 2022
  • Local authorities need to ‘invest in finance teams’ 27th May, 2021

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

  • 151 BRIEFS – WHAT’s NEW?

    • Homes England agrees strategic partnership with two authorities
    • Soaring inflation and pay pressures to add £3.6bn to council budgets
    • Underfunded social care reforms could ‘exacerbate workforce pressures’
    • Nottingham City Council leader labels proposed intervention as ‘disappointing’
    • Government preparing to intervene in Nottingham City Council
  • Room151’s LGPS Roundtables

    Biodiversity
    Valuations & Risk
    LGPS Women

  • Room151’s LGPS Roundtables

    Biodiversity
    LGPS Women
    Valuations & Risk
  • Latest tweets

    Room151 11 hours ago

    Hillier confirmed as keynote speaker for LATIF/FDs’ Summit: Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, has been confirmed as a keynote speaker for Room151’s combined Local Authority Treasurers Investment Forum (LATIF) and FDs Summit. The… dlvr.it/ST70F7 pic.twitter.com/hxV676Iley

    Room151 11 hours ago

    Councils’ funding at risk due to ‘undercounting’ in census data: Population estimates in London and Manchester may have been significantly underestimated in the 2021 census potentially threatening government funding for frontline services in these… dlvr.it/ST707J pic.twitter.com/VncIyaXa01

    Room151 2 days ago

    Gove at LGA: councils to receive two-year financial settlement: Michael Gove has announced that councils will receive a two-year financial settlement from next year to provide authorities with “financial certainty” and allow them to plan ahead. The… dlvr.it/ST0kSV pic.twitter.com/wxL3UM4sGO

    Room151 2 days ago

    LGPS valuations: the digital journey: Rob Bilton explains how technology is helping to deliver one of the most complex data exercises in the world of public sector pensions. The 2022 valuations for LGPS funds in[...] dlvr.it/ST0kMq pic.twitter.com/VxjSPC2Uvo

    Room151 6 days ago

    Conrad Hall: ‘more sophisticated’ regulation needed for local government: The chair of the CIPFA/LASAAC Code Board has questioned the sophistication of financial regulation in local government and the continuing focus of the Department for Levelling Up,… dlvr.it/SSnPBV pic.twitter.com/G5d7JCWF8c

    Room151 1 week ago

    Slough Council approves plans to restructure finance department: Slough Borough Council has approved plans to restructure its finance department to enhance capacity and capability and to address a “significant weakness” in the function. The local… dlvr.it/SSf8DG pic.twitter.com/l5lmyHmkBg

  • Register to become a Room151 user

  • Previous story Birmingham “very likely” to use bond agency
  • Next story News Roundup: Manifesto cuts, LGPS legal challenge, Manchester dev doubts, Lutfur Rahman, £1m solar scheme,

© Copyright 2022 Room 151. Typegrid Theme by WPBandit.

0 shares