Minutes:
(1) The Leader updated the Council on events since the previous meeting.
(2) Mr Carter referred to the differentials for schools under the proposed fair funding formula, and fair funding for local government, education and adult social care.
(3) He reminded Members of the current national government consultation, on funding for schools which was due to close on 22 March. This included proposed changes and indicative budgets along with what this would mean for each individual school in the country. Within the consultation there was an acceptance that many parts of the country were overfunded and other parts were underfunded and an intended re-adjustment from government. However colleagues across the county council network shared concerns about whether this would be achieved by these proposals. He stated that there was a need to work with schools to make sure that, if there were to be significant adjustments, these were applied to the right schools in a fair and equitable way.
(4) Mr Carter made reference to prior attainment being a big factor in driving additional money for schools and being superimposed upon what he considered to already be a fairly generous pupil premium allocation to secondary schools. He referred to the potential for some High Schools in Kent with challenging prior attainment to receive about £7,450 per pupil, including pupil premium, compared to a high performing High School and a Grammar School, trying to achieve excellent and high performance, receiving £3k less per pupil (e.g. about £4350 per pupil) which could mean a differential of £3m between secondary schools.
(5) Mr Carter emphasised the importance of working with schools to make sure that well intended adjustments to the national funding formula returned to the basics of baseline funding for a one form entry primary school or a 6 form or 4 form entry secondary school. Also to make sure that factors were added in a sensible, intelligent way that gave all schools a fair chance of getting the very best out of all their pupils.
(6) Mr Carter put forward his suggestions for sustainable adult social carefunding. He referred to the growth in foreign aid over the last 5 – 6 years of £10.5 billion rising to £16.5 billion by 2020. He compared this to the 36% reduction in local government funding, with local government funding social services to help some of the most vulnerable, elderly or sick people in the community. He expressed the view that national government needed to re-calibrate as the world became a more peaceful place. He believed that some £4 billion from the foreign aid budget could be put into adult social care, whilst still increasing the foreign aid budget from £10 billion to £12 billion.
(7) Mr Carter suggested that national government should review adult social care entitlement to services across Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. He referred to free domiciliary care for everybody at the point of delivery in Scotland, at a massive cost to the Treasury, and the difference in the methods of payment to health and social care providers in Wales. He stated that he believed that there should be some form of National Insurance scheme that would raise £1billion or £2billion to protect the hard earned wealth of families of the 30% of elderly people who would need fairly intensive domiciliary care or residential care packages before they reach the end of their lives.
(8) Mr Carter referred to the relative needs formula paying predominately inner London authorities more than double per capita for their population over the age of 70 compared to the rest of the country. It was estimated about £1billion could have been re-distributed against a fair and equitable system into funding social care.
(9) Mr Carter stated that his suggestions added up to somewhere between £6 billion - £8 billion that could be distributed, therefore could mean another £200million into social care services in a local authority of the scope and size of Kent. He explained that all of his suggestions meant that the Treasury did not have to find any additional monies to fund this solution.
(10) Mr Carter expressed the hope that colleagues could work together to put the case for significant change on the basis of fairness and equity, specifically in the distribution of school funding and the funding of social care. Also that the fair funding review established sensible baselines for what services in inner London cost to deliver compared to the services in shire counties. He stated that area cost adjustments should be based on actual need, which would re-distribute over £1 billion of RSG before the baseline was assessed.
(11) In relation to the broader issue of local government funding Mr Carter stated that the local authority treasurers were meeting to work out what baseline funding was needed based on current evidence of funding levels across the different sizes and types of local authorities in the country. He believed that this would confirm the fact that inner London authorities were over funded. He stated that the question would be whether national government would be brave enough to address the issue where inner London boroughs were paying Council tax levels of £500 to £600 a year and county shires £1,500 a year, and make the necessary changes.
(12) Mr Latchford, the Leader of the Opposition, expressed concern about the continued reduction in central government grants to local government at the same time as increasing local government responsibilities. He referred to the potential Surrey County Council referendum on a 15 % increase in Council Tax. He echoed the accepted view that the County Council could not keep passing on an increased tax burden to the residents of Kent.
(13) Mr Latchford thanked the Leader for his statement on overseas aid and the financing of care for the elderly. He hoped that the Leader would, together with other Council Leaders, use his influence in Parliament.
(14) Mr Latchford stated that whilst he welcomed the move to a new formula for schools he questioned the fairness of the proposed formula. He referred to the 2015 spending review where the Department of Education had recognised that transforming education was central to government commitments to extend opportunity and deliver social justice. However, the old system where some pupils missed out on up to £2,000 of funding depended on what part of the country they lived in was a postcode lottery and let down some pupils who were seriously in need. He stated that the under the new formula whilst an estimated 11,000 schools would gain, 9,000 schools were alleged to lose out. Any changes to the current unfair system should not come from levelling down schools finances making a desperate situation even worse and shifting funding between schools.
(15) Mr Latchford referred to Kent’s pride in its grammar schools and the reported pressure that Ministers were facing from MP’s concerned about costs affecting schools of all kinds in their constituencies. He also mentioned that some grammar schools were now asking parents to make a parental contribution towards the cost of education within that school
(16) In conclusion Mr Latchford stated that fairer funding for schools could be a step in the right direction but it could only be viewed in the context of schools funding as a whole.
(17) Mr Cowan, Leader of the Labour Group, referred to the fair funding formula and the changes to the finances of local government. He stated that the government had reacted to short term issues with instant policies regardless of their overall impact. He gave the example of the Northern Powerhouse, local authorities in the Manchester area had been told that if they grouped together and had an elected mayor they would get special financial support for their economic development plans. This raised the question of what happened to those local authorities, including Kent who did not want to have an elected mayor. He referred to the proposal by Surrey County Council, East Sussex County Council and Tunbridge Wells District Council to form a grouping and the ability of the later to join even if the County Council was opposed.
(18) Mr Cowan mentioned the recent announcement that the Northern Powerhouse would get £556.3m for its development programme whereas the South East Local Enterprise Partnership, a longer established regional local authority based organisation, had put in a bid for £229m but were currently receiving between £45m- £55m. He could therefore understand why the Leader wanted to talk about fair funding due to the issues that local government were facing at every single level.
(19) Mr Cowan referred to reforming local government finances based chiefly on Council Tax and business rate receipts but expressed the view that neither of these sources of revenue were buoyant enough to meet the demands placed upon local authorities. He mentioned the rise in demand for council services, especially adult social care and that the funding for this was a central government problem. He made reference to the increased funding received by inner London councils compared to County Councils, which he stated made a mockery of the concept of fair funding. He stated that the government should acknowledge the substantial funds needed to meet demands imposed on local government and at the same time address the whole set of injustices and distortions so the government funding really would be fair.
(20) Mr Cowan concluded by stating that central government were to blame for local government fair funding issues.
(21) Mrs Dean, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, referred to the comments that had been made regarding fair funding and which were the result of wanting to see a civilised way of funding those who were most vulnerable.
(22) Mrs Dean asked the Leader if he was prepared to write to Mrs May, supported by other Leaders, to express the opposition of Kent County Council to the President of America’s announcement that he was prepared to consider a return to torture.
(23) Mrs Dean referred to fair funding as the holy grail of local authorities in that it had been sought for a long time and never achieved. She referred to the government’s announcement that the lion’s share of the local growth fund was to go to those regions with elected mayors. The reasoning given for this was that where there were devolution deals in place the Department knew that there was a degree of accountability. She questioned what having an elected mayor had to do a local authorities deprivation, past record of delivery, value for money or need.
(24) Mrs Dean questioned how taxation based on a system which was not related to the ability to pay and was not related to service demands could provide a system of local services to deal with the most needy in our society. She expressed the view that there was no other way of funding social services other than through National Insurance, as this was a national burden. She did not believe that it was possible to address local authority demands through business rates which were not related to these services and did not reflect the needs of society. She stated that this unfairness needed to be replaced by openness and transparency
(25) Mr Whybrow, Leader of the Independents Group, reflected on the strange times on both sides of the Atlantic and stated that we seem to have entered an era of “alternative facts”. He referred to central government using “alternative facts” in relation to local government funding for years. He also mentioned the Surrey County Council’s proposed increase of 15% in council tax and the resultant referendum that this would trigger. He hoped that this would generate a very high profile very public debate about the whole nature of local government finance.
(26) Mr Whybrow expressed the view that central government should maintain the foreign aid budget and properly finance local government. He stated that Members should remember the human costs of reduced local government funding.
(27) Mr Whybrow referred to the short sightedness of government making cuts in public health funding when a recent report had shown that Britain’s younger people had higher rates of obesity than the majority of their counter parts in the rest of Europe. He acknowledged that raising Council Tax was not the proper way to fund local government.
(28) In replying to the other Leaders’ comments, Mr Carter referred to the potential increase in Council Tax by Surrey County Council and stated that he had not seen any evidence of Surrey’s differences to most county shires across the country. He considered that Surrey County Council’s proposed increase in Council Tax demeaned the hard work of other counties who had delivered services in response to the reduction of 36% in real terms. He agreed that it was necessary to find a sustainable way of funding social care.
(29) Mr Carter clarified that if the foreign aid budget stayed at £12b or £12.5b it would still represent a significant increase in public expenditure on foreign aid.
(30) Mr Carter emphasised the importance of working with Kent school’s regarding the consultation on the funding formula. He stated that the good news was that Kent would get £30m more but he was concerned that it would not be distributed in a way that would deliver better support and outcomes for all young people in Kent schools.
(31) In relation to commercial rate retention Mr Carter expressed concern at the lack of correlation between business rate collection pool and the demand led pressures on people based services.
(32) Mr Carter stated that he was more optimistic that if Kent brokered its case, working with all other local authorities, it would be possible to provide the evidence as to why money needed to be re-allocated from inner London, in a fair and equitable way, to fund services in other parts of the country. There was much to broker to make sure that there was a system that spent the £30m additional funding coming to Kent in the most intelligent way and the establishment of a new transparent evidence based way of funding local government needs.