‘We need real reform’

While government funding puts extreme pressure on services that care for vulnerable adults and children, the government have announced a £2bn investment on scientific research, as an industrial strategy. Ahead of the Autumn Statement where a four-year settlement for local government should be confirmed, Bristol mayor Marvin Rees calls on the government to take more account of local issues:

Investment in technology and industry is important, but it is striking that when big business expresses concern this kind of money can be found. Meanwhile some of our most important life and limb services face the kinds of pressures that measures such as the two per cent Adult Social Care levy barely begin to solve.

I agree with the need to invest in winning the UK technological advantage. But I also recognise the economic necessity to invest in people and the local government interventions that release people into the economy. These include caring services, youth services, mental health and the voluntary sector.

The country continues to face hugely challenging times and I hope the government will recognise that it cannot build a strong economic future on a weak society. We need similar investment in our people and in fixing the fundamental fabric of society which cuts to councils have decimated over the past six years.

This year we already expect the cost of looking after vulnerable adults to be around £6m more than we had budgeted for. Cities increasingly have more people to look after as their populations grow. Many people now live much longer lives with complex medical and social needs. Together with several other cities we have written to the Secretary of State to share our concern about this issue and seek meaningful dialogue about the future.

Bristol is expecting a £92m gap in its budget over the next five years, leaving us facing incredibly tough choices. A large part of this is the cost of a growing and ageing population and it is no good just trying to continue with a system which isn’t working. We need real reform which links up budgets across health, council and other city services to provide care when it is needed and help prevent people needing long term complex care. 

The government must look at the needs of different places and be much clearer about where and why it provides certain grants and funding. For example it offered £300m of grants to help ease the change of moving away from traditional government grants to councils and towards us raising our funding locally. This was presented as helping the councils who are hardest hit by cuts, but in many cases it seems well-off areas have been given more whilst cities struggling with complex social needs and giant funding gaps have received less.

The government has not explained this so we don’t know why it allocated money in this way. We do need its commitment to this country’s major cities and a productive way to solve problems together, so we are hoping the Secretary of State takes this opportunity to strengthen dialogue with us.

Photo by Zachary Crawley, Candour Creative

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