Councillor Andrew Johnson, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Governance and Resources, has shared the following response to the government’s new Local Government Finance Policy Statement.
“The Local Government Finance Policy Statement indicates how national government intends to fund councils from 2025 to 2026, together with longer-term plans for funding reform. Although we won’t know the details until government shares its Provisional Settlement (expected next week), the signs that its funding will be reduced are worrying for Rutland.
“The new policy statement appears to be much more radical than first anticipated – abolishing or reducing some local government grants so the money can be redistributed in other ways. We’ve been calling for serious changes to the way councils are funded. However, Rutland could be hit particularly hard, on top of existing financial pressures, if our worst fears are confirmed later this month.
“There are some positive signs in the statement, such as proposals for a new Children’s Services Prevention Grant and more money for Adult Social Care Grants. A new Recovery Grant worth £600m is also being proposed. However, the Recovery Grant appears targeted towards authorities in urban areas with high levels of social deprivation. At the same time, the government has said it will scrap an important grant for Rutland, the Rural Services Delivery Grant (RSDG). Rutland has historically received around £1m of RSDG funding each year to help with the costs of running services in a rural area. Scrapping RSDG represents a loss of around 10% of the money the government contributes to the running of our day-to-day services for Rutland’s residents at a time when our costs keep rising.
“The government has previously promised to protect rural councils in its settlement. With RSDG set to be abolished and new grants appearing to use deprivation as way to decide who needs the most funding, Rutland and other rural authorities could be left much worse off. This is due to the calculations looking at the density of deprivation which will favour those areas that are much more populated, leaving more rural areas facing ever more difficult decisions about how best to balance our budgets.”
Councillor Andrew Johnson
Deputy Leader, Rutland County Council