Devon County Council criticises ‘misleading’ cash settlement from Westminster

Devon County Council has claimed that an alleged ‘23% increase’ in funding from government is ‘highly misleading’ and ‘inaccurate’.

With the provisional local government finance settlement announced yesterday (Thursday, December 18) – the amount of funding councils will get from the government for the year ahead – leading councillors have been quick to condemn the way it was presented.

The government had issued statements suggesting a boost in funding for local services, based on headline figures from its Core Spending Power tables.

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But Councillor James Buczkowski, the council’s cabinet member responsible for finance, said: “There is a great deal of confusion being created by the way these figures are being presented. Claims of a ‘23% increase’ in funding for Devon are simply not accurate and risk misleading residents.

“That figure is a cumulative core spending power measure over several years. It is not a year-on-year increase and it is not new money being provided by government to the county council.

“It combines [the] government grant with assumed increases in local council tax, based on councils raising tax to the maximum permitted level and achieving very high collection rates.

“For Devon, the year-on-year increase shown in core spending power is around 5% and that is driven largely by these council tax assumptions rather than by any significant uplift in core government grant.”

This time around the government has announced a three-year settlement, something councils including Devon have been calling for.

This means councils will know how much money they will have in each of the next three years rather than waiting until December to find out what their fate is for the next 12 months.

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Council leader Cllr Julian Brazil has also criticised Devon’s pay out, suggesting that Westminster is implying it is being more generous, even though hikes in council tax will actually be required for the council to secure more cash.

Cllr Brazil said while the county would get £1.7million extra from government in the next financial year, it would then see two years of losing £5.8m.

“They are implying they have given us extra money but they haven’t,” said Cllr Brazil.

“It means services are now being paid for by local taxpayers and not central government. By saying core funding has risen gives the impression that we have got loads of money and should splash it around, but we don’t.”

The government will run a consultation on the provisional settlement until January 14 and consult on the following years as they arrive.

With county councils set to be scrapped from 2028 amid the local government reorganisation plans, HM Treasury has said it will be up to local areas to agree how to divide the funding once the government has decided what future unitary authorities will run Devon.