It’s been bad news all along

The Treasury used to soften public opinion leading up to a Budget by leaking, the previous weekend, dire predictions of tax increases and spending cuts which proved to be groundless, thus leaving the public relieved things were not worse.
In the case of the local government settlement, there has been no attempt to soften opinion. In the weeks before the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), there were dire predictions that local government was going to get clobbered. Sure enough, in the CSR, local government was clobbered. In the run-up to the settlement, there were more predictions that local government would get a hammering in the settlement. This week it did. You could certainly not accuse ministers of spinning. They have never bothered to disguise the fact that local government is the Aunt Sally of public spending cuts, nor deviated from their insistence from day one in power that town and county halls will bear the brunt to spare education, health and international development.
The public themselves are certainly aware that their councils are being squeezed from above. In some cases, they may even have noticed certain services are being curtailed. But, generally, the impact has yet to be truly felt. Even the national media are starting to get bored with stories about branch libraries under threat and potholes unfilled, partly because they ran the same stories the day after the CSR, when local government got its hammering then and partly because they are yet to occur in any quantity. What the media require is human interest – a tragedy, a catastrophe, blame to be apportioned, either to hapless council officials or heartless ministers who have slashed budgets.
But that is in the future and hopefully, never. For the next few weeks, councils will attempt to absorb their revenue downturns with the minimal impact on frontline services. If they can manage, it will be a super-human achievement. If not, then the library cuts and unfilled potholes will be superseded by far bigger stories of strategic service reductions – and ministers will be asking themselves whether, after all, it was a good idea to deal local government such a bad hand.
On that cheery note – a happy Christmas to you all!