How did we get here
Last week Somerset Council agreed on a balanced budget but only with one-off government support. But how did we get here? How did Somerset Council get into this mess and whose fault is it?
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Wednesday 5 March was the day that Somerset Council voted on its budget. Councillors agreed to set a balanced budget. But it only balances because the council was permitted a 7.5% rise in council tax and a £43m capitalisation directive, both of which needed central government approval.
Worse, the budget gap for next year (2026/27) is over £100m and despite the best efforts of the s151 Officer (that’s like a Finance Director for councils), it sounds as if no-one really has a clue how to fill that gap.
It is a pretty miserable time for local government. And it begs the question, in general terms and in Somerset in particular, how did we get here?
In the course of the Somerset Council budget debate on Wednesday and in the weeks leading up to it, various councillors of various colours have blamed each other and a variety of economic factors. As ever there is some truth in most of the things that have been claimed. But there is also a great deal of chutzpah and hyperbole.
There is also quite a lot of convenient memory loss.
Let’s start at the beginning, which in terms of the crisis in local government funding, was the election of the Coalition Government of 2010. Much as Somerset LibDems have indulged themselves in a collective act of amnesia, that was a coalition of the willing and in those days it was the LibDems as well as the Conservatives who were willing.
As we have highlighted before, the austerity of the years 2010 - 2015 did not, contrary to what you might expect, affect all the great departments of state.