“Bluntly, no one in government can say how councils will be funded after 2020 when they were all supposed to become self-financing.”
This is the stark conclusion of one newspaper report this week as it has become clear that plans by the government to hand back local business rate money to town halls are stalled at best.
My counterpart in Newcastle and vice-chair of the Local Government Association, Councillor Nick Forbes, said: “We’re approaching a cliff edge and no one has any idea how to stop us hurtling over it.”
The government keeps more than £50 million of the rates paid by businesses in Brighton and Hove.
By 2020, whoever runs our city council will have £100 million less in government funding to pay for the services we all use.
Costs don’t stand still either. More litter has to be collected, social care costs are increasing, benefit cuts mean pressure on welfare services is likely to rise and no one knows exactly how badly Brexit will hit our economy.
And then there are the cuts in government funding of over £11 million to our schools.
The challenges are enormous. In just over 18 months’ time you will again go to the polling stations to elect the councillors who will have to meet those challenges.
My team and I will be ready. We will stand on our record of achievement in housing, basic services, protecting the vulnerable and boosting an economy that works for all, a record that is already good but which we will add to in the coming year.
We will offer more. We will ask for a majority on the council, the chance to build on that record, meet the challenges we face, and bring our experience to bear on the issues that matter to you.
We will innovate and adapt, we will fight for fairer funding and get the best possible deal for your communities.
More decent and affordable homes, more secure and well-paid jobs, continued improvement in all our schools, an infrastructure fit for tomorrow.
In the face of difficult times we will offer stability and hope for an ambitious, better Brighton and Hove, confidently British and European, outward looking and open for business, proud of its heritage and future.
If our vision is one you support, then share your ideas with us and think what contribution you can make to ensure a majority Labour council in 2019.
Councillor Warren Morgan is the Labour leader of Brighton and Hove City Council.
Just to point out, all Labour Councillors face re-selection, there party will democratically decide on candidates which represent the membership and are able to take on officers.
Since 2015, we haven’t seen much of this from labour and this needs to change.
The housing allocations policy which the labour group celebrated just last year, is causing nightmares now for councillors who are being dictated to by unelected council officers.
We need backbone, not empty promises.
Cllr Morgan’s spiel is high on waffle, short on detail.
It does not bode well for anything, the way in which he has been set upon the downgrading of Hove’s Carnegie Library and Museum.