A Kingston View: Serious Financial Situation Continues at the County Council

Published on: 6 Aug, 2017
Updated on: 8 Aug, 2017

Keith Witham

By Keith Witham

Conservative county councillor for Worplesdon writes about the financial challenges faced by Surrey County Council.

The financial situation at Surrey County Council (SCC) continues to be very serious.  Put simply, there is not enough money to continue all the existing council services at their current levels.

Unlike the government, councils are required by law to balance their books every year. They cannot just borrow money to pay for services, the accounts have to balance.  And at the moment for SCC there is a forecast deficit of some £100 million a year; the difference between the current anticipated income and current anticipated expenditure. Sadly, the situation, as far as anyone can see, is only going to worsen.

The council’s  income is received from only four sources:

a. Council tax – but the amount of any increase  is capped.

b. Government grants – The government’s “Revenue Support Grant”, which is a general contribution to local council services from national taxation,  has been declining for some years.

In 2013 it was £151 million a year, has reduced every year since,  and is planned to reduce next year to almost zero.  The government’s current plan is that in 2019 Surrey Council Tax payers should contribute £17 million a year to the government!

SCC has rejected that plan as unfair and is lobbying the government and our MP’s for that money to be retained in Surrey, for use in Surrey. There are other government grants, each given for specific purposes, but the formulas used are not favourable to our county (see item 2 below re “Fairer Funding”).

c. Business rates –  Out of nearly £500 million a year paid by Surrey businesses to the government, less than £130 million comes back to Surrey  (SCC and the borough councils combined) – some £365 million a year is retained by the government for use elsewhere in the country.

d. Fees and charges – These are for some services etc.

So the county council is having to try and provide all of its services with less money! But that’s nothing new. Over the past eight years, all SCC departments have made ongoing cost savings already amounting to almost £500 million per year.  That’s over £60 million of savings every year for eight years. But to stay within the funding  available more savings will still be needed this year, next year and beyond.

During the same time demand for services continues to increase, particularly those for Adult Social Care which are “demand led”, and those increasing costs are outside of the council’s control.  In other words, there are more people living longer, and needing social care support for longer and that demand is increasing faster than the money available to councils.

While in Children’s Social Services more school places are needed because of an increasing population. SCC is currently having to create some 20,000 new school places, both at primary and secondary level.

Of course, these increases in demand can only further squeeze the money available for all other services.

So Surrey County Council is re-doubling it efforts to persuade the government of the case for Surrey and has been talking to all 11 of our Surrey MPs. I would encourage residents to also contact their MP – because  if fairer funding is not achieved, and soon, there are only three options, significant cuts to the public services in Surrey,  significant extra hikes in council tax, or both.

By “fairer funding” I do not mean special treatment for Surrey.  I do mean government funding for Surrey which relates to the needs within Surrey, rather than just standard funding.  Some examples of this are:

The Government gives Councils an annual grant for road maintenance, but that is based just on the number of miles of road in each County – irrespective of how much the roads are actually used.  Surrey’s roads are amongst the busiest and most heavily used in the country – so common sense says that they need to be repaired more often. But that’s not how the grant system works, every council gets about the same per mile in its area, which is why if you drive to the north of England you will drive along many miles of pristine roads!

Another example is the funding needed to support people with learning disabilities (part of Adult Social Care).  Surrey has the largest population of people with learning disabilities not just in the UK, but in Europe. Why? Because  a few years ago  the Government introduced “Care in the Community” and subsequently closed the old style large mental asylums, which were NHS hospitals.

There was a whole string of the old asylums south of London, located in Surrey, and at the time the government transferred responsibility for some 1,000 people from the NHS to our county council’s Adult Social Care – together with an annual grant of £61 million to cover the cost of that new responsibilty. But in the subsequent years the grant has reduced, and reduced, and will next year be zero. But the people requiring that care are still the council’s responsibility and the commensurate costs remain with SCC.

In the schools. The government gives each council an annual grant, per pupil. Surrey receives £4,252 a year per pupil.  Half of Surrey children go to school in the northern half of the County, which borders onto Greater London, and our schools in those areas have to compete on recruitment of staff and the pay offered in those London Boroughs. But the seven London Boroughs bordering Surrey receive an average of £4,695 per pupil – £443 a year extra. If that level of funding was available to SCC it would mean an extra £30 million a year into our schools.

Public Health.  In 2013 the government transferred responsibility for public health services to the county councils. That’s not the whole of the NHS, but in essence the preventative health services. Other county councils receive an average funding of £33 per person. But in Surrey it’s only £20 per person – so a further shortfall of £13 million a year compared to with other areas.

Business rates.  SCC is still pressing the government to make Surrey part of a pilot programme in order to retain more of the business rates generated in the county . If Surrey can be included in such a pilot and we can see how much of the £365 million a year from Surrey now spent in other areas of the country could be retained for use here in Surrey, it could help a lot. Surrey is one of the highest contributors of taxes to the national exchequer anywhere in the UK. Last year over £11 billion net – ie after all our police, hospitals and NHS, council services etc are all paid for, that’s £11 billion  (£11,000 million) from Surrey for use elsewhere in the UK.

Surrey is one of the highest contributors of taxes to the national exchequer anywhere in the UK. Last year over £11 billion net – ie after all our police, hospitals and NHS, council services etc are all paid for, that’s £11 billion  (£11,000 million) from Surrey for use elsewhere in the UK.

Some, probably all, of the ways that SCC is now having to reduce its costs, will not be welcome. Amongst my colleagues at SCC there is no enthusiasm for any of this. But legally the budget has to balance.

The money available to the joint GBC/SCC Guildford Local Committee for discretionary local road and safety improvement schemes has been reduced from approx £700,000 last year to £77,000 this year, almost a 90% reduction.  Across Surrey all eleven borough Local Committee budgets have been reduced in line with that, from a total of over £5.6 million last year to £850,000 this year. This is a saving of nearly £5 million this year but it means that some planned local road safety improvement schemes will not happen, and others cannot now be considered.

After that reduction, Surrey Highways continues to spend over £60 million on road maintenance and repairs, and it is intended to bring a summary of what is being spent specifically in Guildford to the Guildford Local Committee so that how that money is being spent can be scrutinised locally.

On the plus side, residents may have noticed an extensive refresh of the white lines on local main routes and side roads off, as the while line markings are themselves an important part of road safety.

SCC is currently consulting on plans to save almost £2 million a year by closing four of the smaller less used Community Recycling Centres and reducing the opening of all other recycling centres (including Slyfield) from seven days a week to five days a week – (Saturday and Sunday opening will continue, the centre will close on the least used two days Monday to Friday);  end the free construction waste allowance and ensure that the centres are only used by Surrey residents (especially near county boundaries).

There will be a reduction in housing related support to save just under £3 million a year. This will involve ceasing to commission the current services, and if individuals have an on-going need for support they will have an individual assessment and if they qualify will receive a direct payment to pay for the services .

I have spent all of this article so far depressing you (and myself) but to show that it’s not all bad news…

Rogue traders and doorstep scammers in Surrey have been successfully targeted during a joint trading standards and police crackdown. Trading standards officers teamed up with the police to check vans and lorries, patrol rogue trader hotspots and pursue ongoing investigations into fraud and money laundering.

A total of 207 rogue trader and doorstep scam incidents in Surrey were reported to trading standards last year – and rapid intervention by officers stopped residents being ripped off to the value of £1.2million. There were 25 incidents in Guildford.

The three most common scams in Surrey involved roofing work, with 73 incidents reported, followed by paving or tarmacking, with 41 incidents reported and gardening, with 32. The highest value scam was an attempted £90,000 building work fraud in Dorking.  A rapid action team of trading standards officers foiled the scam and the perpetrators are now being investigated.

Rogue traders spell misery for residents and undermine genuine businesses. To report a rogue trader, contact the Citizens Advice consumer service on 03454 040506 or via:  www.surreycc.gov.uk/business-and-consumers/trading-standards

And some good news from our schools – Despite not having the same level of funding per pupil as other councils, six in every seven Surrey applicants for reception class places this September were offered their first choice school, an improvement of 4% to 86%. Nearly 90% of Surrey applicants were offered their first preference junior school.

Also, the government has given the green light to two new special schools for Surrey under the national Free Schools Programme. The first, Linden Hill, is a co-educational 120 place school for those with complex social and communication needs. The second is Surrey Downs Court, a co-educational special school with places for 180 pupils aged seven to 19 with communication and interaction needs, including autistic spectrum disorder (ASD).

The new schools are the result of partnership arrangements involving existing Surrey schools increasing the capacity within the SEND (special educational needs and disability) system to help cater for the growing number of children. Providing for those with high needs is a central part of Surrey’s special educational needs development plan. A provisional opening date for each school will be announced when known.

Finally, I have recently become a volunteer trustee of Age UK Surrey. It has many services that can be of help to older people, things like light housework, help with the washing, running errands , tidying the garden etc.

Age UK Surrey can help people with all of these day-to-day needs. They also run an information and advice service, foot care clinics, and offer counselling for people who have been bereaved, feel depressed or are lonely.

They also run a computer drop-in centre in Guildford that helps older people improve their IT and internet skills; a “Men in Sheds” project in Ash that enables older men to undertake a range of crafts and projects, and the “Shopmobility” service in Guildford town centre.

If you, or anyone you know might be interested in any of these, the contact details for any queries are: Age UK Surrey – www.ageuksurrey.org.uk – Tel: 01483 503414 – Email: enquiries@ageuksurrey.org.uk.

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