Nine in ten senior council managers believe the Autumn Statement will impact negatively on their residents, with many frontline services expected to be axed, a stark new survey has suggested.
Swift research by senior officers’ organisation Solace found 87% of council chief executives and senior staff believe chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s financial measures announced last week ‘will have a negative or extremely negative impact on their residents’.
Asked specifically about vulnerable residents, more than two-thirds (69%) said the Autumn Statement would have a negative or extremely negative impact while three out of four senior council personnel believe the measures will negatively impact businesses.
Four out of 10 senior council staff believe the Autumn Statement has made their financial position worse than it was before the announcement.
Almost four out of five Solace respondents said that before the Autumn Statement they were already facing a ‘large or very large’ gap in their budgets for the 2023-24 financial year.
Solace spokesperson for finance and chief executive at Sunderland City Council, Patrick Melia, said: ‘This survey makes for alarming reading.
'Our members in councils across the country were already grappling with hugely challenging financial pressures, in part due to the huge increases in the cost of all manner of core goods and services, as well as the ongoing increased demand for services, amounting to a real terms funding shortfall into the billions across the sector.
‘Trying to respond to these pressures through regressive council tax or use of reserves is simply not sustainable.
'The upshot is that basic service provision will inevitably suffer, with negative consequences for millions of residents.’
This article was originally published by The MJ (£).
