Shopshire leader's Gov comments deemed “strange”

The leader of Shropshire Council stating that the Government “does not like rural authorities” has been deemed “strange” by one of the opposition parties.

The local authority says that, had the existing Local Government funding policies “been broadly retained” for a further year, it would be facing a balanced budget position for 2025/26.

Instead, the draft financial settlement shows a reduction in Core Spending Power in Shropshire of between £24m and £28m compared to what it would overwise have been.

This, says the council, means that it needs to identify further savings of £22.8m to balance next year’s budget. This includes £8.5m of potential new savings that it has put out for consultation.

The final Local Government Financial Settlement (LGFS) is set to be published in mid-February. However, at this stage, Shropshire is due to receive the third lowest funding out of all local authorities in England. That is despite Shropshire Council covering twice the area of the 33 London boroughs.

Speaking at a recent meeting of Transformation and Improvement Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Councillor Lezley Picton, the leader of Shropshire Council, said “there is a little bit of an agenda going on here”, adding that “the Government doesn’t lilke rurul authorities, especially unitary ones.”

In response, Councillor Rosemary Dartnall, the Shropshire Labour Group leader, said Cllr Picton’s conclusion is “no doubt intended to fool the good people of Shropshire into giving the Conservatives control of Shropshire Council in the May local election”.

“We didn’t hear much during the harsh austerity years from Shropshire Tories about a Tory government hating rural residents – from the size of the cuts and the broad swing of the knife, perhaps they simply hated us all?” said Cllr Dartnall.

“If residents are minded to return a Labour-run Shropshire Council in May, they will experience an invigorated administration, a council working positively for change with all local MPs and with a Labour Government determined to fix our broken country from the foundations upwards.

“Our focus will be on the quality of the services we all rely on, reversing the dependency on external contractors and delivering better services locally. We will tackle the depressing decline seen everywhere – the dog-eared state of our towns and neighbourhood streets, the swathes of litter lining our potholed roads with signs that can’t be seen or read.

“I’ll choose to be kind and sympathise with Cllr Picton, we can all sympathise – it’s so much easier to blame someone else than to face up to the truth and accept one’s own failings.

“As Labour Group leader, it has been clear to me, since the General Election in July, that Shirehall Conservatives expect the new Labour Government to rush in and pick up the tab for their financial failure.

“For a year, the council has been on the brink of bankruptcy. The latest accounts predict council reserves to be just £1.5m at the end of the current financial year – a very small safety net for a council spending more than £700m annually.

“While the Government has advised an increased settlement in some areas – generously so in SEN education and to repair our potholes – they have not come bearing an open cheque. Perhaps government requires local authorities to evolve, be more efficient and reform service delivery?”