The Government has been accused of adjusting financial settlements in favour of the wealthiest authorities by a coalition of urban councils.
SIGOMA is calling on the Government to drop plans to allocate £153m to some of the country’s wealthiest authorities in this year’s Local Government Finance Settlement through the negative revenue support grant.
It warned that deprived councils outside of London will have lost £1bn since 2010 due to this proposal and other similar policy decisions.
Cllr Stephen Houghton, leader of Barnsley Council and head of the group, said: ‘These latest proposals are the final straw in a pattern of policymaking that has consistently adjusted settlements in favour of some of the wealthiest parts of the country and forced our councils to cut further and faster than most.
‘Local government finance isn’t the most exciting subject, so these issues are easily swept under the rug due to the technical jargon that surrounds them.’
He highlighted the fact that areas such as Knowsley and South Tyneside will receive no funding from this change despite seeing their core funding cut by 30%. However, Surrey will receive £27m from the proposal even though its core funding has only been cut by 4%.
Cllr Houghton added: ‘We want to see the Government allocate any additional money to local government based on need, not political convenience. The £153m they are proposing to gift to wealthy authorities this time has the technical guise ‘elimination of negative revenue support grant’ but there is no logic to it and it is going largely where it is least needed.
'It is £153m they could have allocated to support chronically underfunded children’s services, rather than playing favourites.'
An MHCLG spokesman said: 'Although the Government has a preferred option for resolving this issue, we recognise there are a range of views across the sector on the issue of Negative RSG.
'The consultation has laid out in detail alternative approaches we have considered and we have welcomed all representations on this issue. We will closely consider the responses received.'
