Today, I challenged the Tory Minister for Local Government on his department’s shocking complacency regarding local council funding. The austerity begun under the Tory-Lib Dem coalition in 2010, has cut local councils to the bone. London Councils will have seen a 63% real terms cut to core funding from central government by 2020. These cuts have direct consequences for the services residents rely on.

Children’s services and adult social care look after the most vulnerable adults and young people in our communities. There is currently a £3.1 billion gap in the funding for children’s services and a £4.3 billion gap in the funding of adult social care. This means that thousands of people are living without the care and support they desperately need - it is nothing short of a scandal.  

To add to the uncertainty, the government has failed to set out the local government funding settlement for 2020-21, so just 8 months from the beginning of the new financial year our councils have no idea what budget they have available to plan the services they need to provide.