Speech to Council on Fair Deal for York Motion

Speech by Cllr Andrew Waller delivered to Full Council on Thu 3rd Dec 2009

"As councils across the country prepare for public spending cuts over the next few years, Council regrets that York is yet again being put at a disadvantage by unfair government funding formulas.

Council notes that

· Despite the welcome announcement of extra funding for concessionary fares, the funding does not cover the £1.1m paid by local Council Tax payers to fund the service over the last six years.

· Having paid over £15m in landfill taxes over the past 13 years, York has only received £2.5m in grants to help improve recycling.

· York is still not getting a fair deal in its core funding from Government. This year York will receive £1.155m less than should have been allocated by the formula.

Council looks forward to a time when York receives a fair deal on funding from the government and instructs the Chief Executive to write to the Secretary of State expressing the Council's concerns."

Speech

It is astonishing that once again when a local government settlement of 4% increase is being trumpeted that York is once again not getting the results that going elsewhere.

For Ministers to say that a 4% increase in government funding is coming to all councils is misleading. It is also in denial about the new responsibilities that have been offloaded to local councils without the corresponding funding, Legionella checks, and farm inspections being just some of the more recent additional responsibilities, and another hike in Landfill Tax which will do more to limit what we can do in providing additional recycling services than to help with the solutions. Indeed I shall just dwell on the Landfill Tax for a moment - I am sure that as councillors you are asked by constituents why can't the council collect this or that on top of the current system, what about a separate food waste collection, what about paint, what about getting more furniture re-used. So why ratchet up the Landfill tax and then claim that somehow we are getting more resources as the Labour Government claims.

Budgets are already under pressure up and down the land because of the pressure from the numbers of children in care, and the demands from an increasingly aging population. York is not immune from these two pressures, yet does not seem to have a look in when it comes to the government stepping in.

The fact that we are expected to run the same council services as other unitary councils, but the government grant values each York resident worthy of £224 per person, when the average is £378 per head - why the disparity ?

I could look at the table of Unitary Authority Formula Grant Funding 2010/11

One of the most interesting features of the debate with the other Leeds City Region Leaders is the level of their funding.

Now you may say, why bother, it is always the same, and whilst in the short period between the Unitary council being created and the election of the 1997 Labour Government the MP for York did say that York had got a raw deal, but then promptly stayed ultra loyal.

Well, when I could I raised the unfairness of the Concessionary Fares settlement, after all I am here to stand up for the city not defend the government.

At the meeting of Yorkshire and Humber council leaders on 5th December last year I was able to question John Healey whilst he was Local Government Minister about the Concessionary Fares situation. He once again claimed that it was "fully funded nationally" and that appeared to be the end of it - but now there has been a U turn due to the collective efforts of councils up and down the country protesting (and the LGA will point to it as a success and so worthy of their subscription fee).

Therefore all this motion is seeking to achieve is that York should get fair government funding for the services that we are expected to provide.

I hope that you will support the motion.