Pressure mounts from the cuts

As night follows day, it was inevitable that however prepared chief executives maintained they were for the spending cuts, and however much planning they had put in, the end result would be last-minute slash and burn, dramatic job cuts, and salami-slicing of services. After all, the CSR was only in October, the settlement in December, the front-loading much harsher than anticipated, and the new financial year less than two months away.
So, is it a surprise that councils have opted to cut whatever delivers immediate savings, irrespective of their impact, whether community grants, third sector funding, lollipop ladies, streetlighting or branch libraries?
Depressingly, no. And should the Government be taken aback that its much-vaunted Big Society idea has also been cut off at the knees, along with council funding? Of course not. And should communities secretary, Eric Pickles, as has been suggested in some quarters, take the rap from the PM for not doing more to stop council cuts to the voluntary sector? Again, no. He is supposed to be a localist.
If I may be allowed to name drop, at a magazine editors’ reception at Number 10 last week, I managed to grab a few seconds with the prime minister, and observed that the council cuts were ‘not very strategic’, to which he replied: ‘That’s down to councils.’
The cuts are indeed down to councils, although the reason for making them is very much government macro-economic policy, and the PM can hardly wash his hands of them. (Incidentally, David Cameron’s response to my suggestion that if Whitehall and public sector budgets were more joined up, then big savings could still be made was to say, ‘Eric Pickles is doing a fine job’).
However, the PM is right in that the localist agenda – such as the removal of ring-fencing - means councils taking responsibility for making unpalatable decisions. Having handed them a brutal settlement in one hand, and pledges on localism in the other, the Government has no alternative but to tough it out.
If it truly believes in localism, then it must leave councils to make the decision on cuts, however un-strategic and salami-slicing they may be.