Blank cheques, but not for councils

As the election campaign gets under way, politicians begin writing out blank cheques. Despite the knowledge that public spending is about to hit the buffers, our illustrious leaders continue to make pledges on the assumption that the voters cannot be trusted to be told the truth. The trouble is that most of the blank cheques seem to involve departments other than local government.

Incredibly, the Conservatives, at last weekend’s spring conference in Brighton, were running up huge tabs on future pledges, even as they were promising to get to grips with the deficit ‘from day one’.

During their weekend by the seaside, shadow ministers promised to increase NHS spending in real terms every year through the next parliament, link pensions to earnings, introduce marriage into the tax system, create 4,200 more health visitors for Sure Start, build more prisons to prevent early releases, fund council tax rises of 2.5% for two years, and match the council tax on new housing for six years.

Since it is unlikely the Conservatives will cut defence or law and order, that leaves precious little room for spending cuts – unless local government is to end up picking up the bill for all the excess elsewhere.

When we then add in Gordon Brown’s demand that policing must be protected from cuts, together with the ongoing Personal Care at Home Bill’s fanciful idea that its huge new demands can all be funded by efficiency savings in councils and the NHS, then we have not economics, but freakonomics.

The fact is the maths just doesn’t add up. Either politicians know that and are telling porkies to the voters, or they genuinely believe they can both spend more and spend less at the same time, or they intend to slash the only budget they haven’t identified for growth, namely, local government.

But the BBC’s timely and helpful survey earlier this week into council staffing cuts has reminded voters that the public values its local services. I was interviewed by 15 different BBC radio stations across England about the survey on Monday, and there was clear support and sympathy for councils from normally-sceptical presenters. Politicians will need to think very carefully about singling out local government for an unfair share of cuts.