Essential council services to be scrapped due to cutbacks by the government

Brighton and Hove City Council leader Warren Morgan has told The Argus that the authority will go through significant reform during his administration.

He said: “Some services will be much reduced. Some will be shared with other authorities. Some will be delivered by private sector partners. Some will be delivered by the community and voluntary sector, through mutuals and co-operatives. Some will be delivered through the Greater Brighton city region and some will cease to be delivered.”

Councillor Morgan said that a radical overhaul of services may come too soon for next year’s budget because of a lack of preparation from the previous Green administration but would feature heavily in the next three.

He also told this paper that he will outline a future vision in September built around “co-operative council principles” already operating in Labour heartlands elsewhere in the country.

Coun Morgan said the authority was still looking into the impact of Chancellor George Osborne’s announcement that could see councils having to find further savings of up to 40 per cent over the next four years.

The Local Government Association warned that the revelation delivered within the Government’s spending review announcement will leave councils with a £7 billion shortfall.

Brighton and Hove City Council is already braced to make £68 million worth of savings between now and 2019/20 even with year-on-year council tax rises of two per cent.

Coun Morgan said the latest announcement puts local government “under threat” when councils have already taken the biggest hits.

He said: “When a Conservative body like the Local Government Association is really ringing the alarm bells like that then we really are beyond party politics and into real serious concern.”

Coun Morgan said it was “unavoidably” the case that the council would look considerably different at the end of the four-year budget cycle agreed earlier this month.

He said the most radical reform would come within the final three years because the council was not in a position yet to bring about significant change.

He said the findings of the city’s fledgling Fairness Commission in a year’s time would greatly influence the budget plans for the final three years of his administration. He said: “We simply could not do it in terms of planning and consultation in time for the next budget.

“When we came in as an administration, that process was not advanced enough to pick up, so we needed to start that process properly. It’s not something you can rush.

“There are many other authorities that have had four to five years’ planning and had the time to set up friends of groups to run their parks or co-operatives to run their housing or whatever solution that is best for them locally.”

Councillor Warren Morgan Councillor Warren Morgan

"HARD TASK" FOR COUNCIL LEADER TO FIND SAVINGS

Entering power following May’s election victory, council leader Warren Morgan was under no illusions about the scale of the task ahead.

He was the new head of a local authority facing a £102 million shortfall by 2020.

But that task may have been made twice as difficult by Chancellor George Osborne's announcement this week that all non ring-fenced government departments would have to find up to 40% in additional savings.

Mr Osborne said the savings were necessary if the Government was to achieve its aim of clearing the deficit in five years' time.

The announcement made in preparation of November’s spending review did offer some hope to council leaders by promising “radical devolution of power” - giving local leaders more opportunity to “drive efficiencies by bringing budgets”.

The Chancellor has asked all relevant Government ministers to “proactively consider” what they can devolve to local areas and city regions.

Coun Morgan said it was essential that local authorities were given greater revenue raising and retention powers if they were to plug the gap of ever reducing central government support.

He said: “The Government keeps moving the goalposts and are not giving us the tools we need to become more financially self sufficient.

“Local government leaders of all hues are saying we should be given a greater share, if not 100%, of business rates, to offset what seems to be the elimination of the Government revenue support grant.

“They have got to give us more devolved powers without stipulating terms.”

Councils which take on more power would follow in the footsteps of Greater Manchester and agree a devolution deal in return for an elected mayor. To do this they need to submit their proposals to the Treasury by September 2015.

But the Coun Morgan said he wanted greater fiscal control to come without the pre-condition of an elected mayor.

The city strongly voted against having an elected mayor in 2001.

Coun Morgan said: “I don’t see an appetite in Brighton and Hove and across our partner authorities for an elected mayor.

“I don’t see that people are looking to that, I think we have robust enough governance within our partnerships to deliver devolution and I don’t think an elected mayor is needed for Greater Brighton.”

In September the Labour administration will be looking at co-operative council models from around the country for inspiration.

Co-operative council examples include the recent work by Milton Keynes Council to transfer 50 community assets including leisure facilities and libraries over to parish councils and residents’ groups, staff-led mutuals taking control of York City Council’s libraries as well as its medical equipment hire, telecare and warden services for vulnerable residents and Sunderland City Council setting up devolved budgets for local neighbourhoods.

Coun Morgan said: “It doesn’t mean that everything in the council we run as a service becomes a mutual.

“It’s about taking the co-operative principles of democracy, fairness, involving communities in decision making, having them help design the kind of services they need, addressing and reducing costs at a very local level, about looking at innovations with technology.

“It’s not a panacea, it’s not going to solve this financial crisis, but its the best way we believe of bringing everybody along with us and tackling what seems at the outset, an absolutely monumental task.”

Coun Morgan said that without innovation from within the council or from Whitehall, the council was limited in ways it could raise extra revenue, especially with council tax rises restricted to 1.99% a year without a costly and hard-to-win referendum.

He said options such as raising fees and charges would only bring in additional hundreds of thousands of pounds when tens of millions were required, adding there was little opportunity to increase parking charges which had already reached levels that had made the last Green administration “unpopular”.

He said without additional revenue powers, councils would struggle to provide statutory services in the near future, and that his administration would have to look at additional revenue raising which previously “might have been uncomfortable to look at, may not have fully explored or may not have even thought of.”

Coun Morgan said he was prepared that some of his actions would make him unpopular but said that there was still reason to be positive.

He said his administration had already made good progress in within its first three months in starting the Fairness Commission, launching an apprenticeship scheme and the approval of new recycling and refuse schemes.

He added: “Even during the best of times no political administration goes through a four year term without making decisions that people don’t like.

“I will have to make a lot of decisions that I don’t like.

“But In adversity, there’s opportunity.

“We will be able to do things by levering external funding, by bringing in projects that will help people, that will have a positive change.

“Just because our funding is being cut doesn’t mean there aren’t positive changes we can bring to Brighton and Hove, to the lives of neighbourhoods, communities and individuals.”

WARREN MORGAN Q&A

Signature dish: I don’t get to cook very often these days, but I’m good at cooking something out of nothing.

Favourite films: tough choice – The Shawshank Redemption, The Empire Strikes Back or Apocalypse Now, but I haven’t seen the Minions movie yet.

Sport: I’ve never been able to play anything with any success, so watching football is about it as my interest in Formula 1 tailed off a couple of seasons ago.

Favourite football team: I’m a season ticket holder at the Amex with my Dad. I saw my first Albion game in 1974, and my grandfather was a fan from pre-First World War days, so it’s in the family.

Favourite colour: red, of course, except for football.

Restaurant: such a wide choice, Stekis, Dos Sombreros, Agua Dulce and Blue Mango are favourites, keep meaning to try World’s End on London Road.

Favourite school lesson: I have to say English because my former teacher lives in my ward and I count on his vote.

Work before becoming councillor: Sussex Police HQ Communications.