Given the news around Croydon Council over the past few days, the discussion takes a look at local authority funding, or the lack of it.
With Chancellors of the Exchequer since George Osborne in 2010 all choosing to squeeze the central government funding of councils, in an outsourcing of taxation misery in the name of “austerity”, Prof Michell describes the past 15 years’ policy as “a false economy”.
“The damage that’s done to whole cohorts of young people in particular who don’t have leisure facilities, don’t have the youth clubs, don’t have access to outside spaces and so on, now we’re seeing big increases in budgets for special needs education for example. Now I can’t draw a direct connection, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are sort of longer-run effects that outweigh in pure cost terms, the cost savings.
“It’s ongoing because with councils, an ever-increasing share of their budget is going towards social care. And that’s very, very hard to squeeze. I mean, it is being squeezed, but it’s very hard to squeeze, which means everything else is getting squeezed.
“Those budgets were cut substantially under Osborne, they haven’t come back in real terms, certainly haven’t come back in real terms per person, they have come back somewhat, but not back to pre -2010 levels. So that does feel, as you say, like an ongoing austerity.”
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