"Reform said it would cut Council Tax at Kent County Hall. It is increasingly certain they can’t and won’t"
At the Folkestone and Hythe District Council Full Council meeting 0f 26th November, Labour Councillor Liz McShane asked:
From Councillor McShane to Councillor Prater, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance and Governance
"In light of the reported £46 million overspend at Kent County Council, just six months after the Reform administration took office, can the Cabinet Member explain how this level of financial mismanagement is expected to impact services in Folkestone & Hythe, and what specific measures this Council will take to protect residents?"
Tim replied:
I can't begin to thank you enough for your question Liz.
At the end of Quarter 2 the Kent County Council forecast outturn variance was an overspend of £46.5m. The most significant overspend is in Adult Social Care & Health, totalling £50.9m.
Now, If Councillor Wimble was here, I'm sure he'd want me to mention that this overspend is against the budget set by the previous Conservative administration, and perhaps that budget was wildly optimistic and unachievable.
But he's not, so I won't. Happy honeymoon David.
And the impact of that will be to remove any chance of less than a 4.99% Council Tax rise from Kent County Council next year.
Reform said it would cut Council Tax at County Hall. It is increasingly certain they can’t and won’t.
And it’s also likely they will try to shunt costs they should be paying for onto others.
That is what seems to be happening, and we have been, continue to, and will always resist it.
So for example KCC have tried to claim that district councils are in breach of a contract and owe them money on on-street parking costs. No, they are not.
KCC have tried to suggest that this district council should pay a large share of re-opening the Road of Remembrance. But it’s a Kent road, run by Kent Highways, who get money to fix and keep our roads open. We do our job. They should do theirs. They should pay.
And last year KCC stopped providing support funding to districts to administer and support the working age Council Tax Reduction Scheme. That was an annual cost saving of £1m to Kent County Council, which even the Council’s own S151 officer thought would cost them £10 million a year in lost income.
To be fair, this was in the budget passed by the last Conservative administration. Bad ideas at Kent County Council were not invented in May.
And so I can offer a practical example of how we will protect this Council and our residents from cost shunts like that.
We need to streamline and simplify our Council Tax Reduction Scheme. With less staff, as Kent County Council aren’t providing them, we have look to do so. And so as you’ll know we’ve been out to consultation on proposals change our Council Tax Reduction Scheme and make it more generous, and much easier, for the lowest income households in our area.
We’ll be asking this council to consider it on 26th January – I hope you can support it then.
The current scheme charges EVERY working age household, no matter their income or ability to pay, at least 25% of their Council Tax. There are then schemes in place for many to claim back much or all of that payment though awards. We’re proposing reducing to zero council tax payments for the households less able to pay, and being more generous above that too, which of course means much less work by both household and council on then completing and evaluating claims for more support.
The impacts are that many households will have less stress to get the Council Tax support they need.
The impacts to us are that we will not need the staff previously funded by KCC to support that section of the process. We can therefore target our award-winning teams time on other support for other residents in need.
And the financial impact on this council of lower income will be relatively small, but rather larger on Kent County Council.
So that’s an example of how we will seek to mitigate the impact of Kent County Council’s increasingly desperate financial position on local residents, while also achieving a better outcome for those that need our support most.
In answer to the follow-up question “How can Kent County Council reduce the risk of the impact of bad decisions on Folkestone and Hythe residents?” Tim added:
As you’ll know Liz, the best way to avoid making bad decisions is to test them. To scrutinise them. Ask questions. Check impacts. Look at the audits. Talk to the experts. See if they are good decisions, or ones that need modifying to protect residents.
That’s what we see here from our Audit and Scrutiny Committees. I can promise we’ve taken feedback from that those committees and improved our proposals though it – I can remember personally stealing whole a point raised by Laura Davison in that process a budget or two ago.
And that’s why I’m aghast to hear the KCC Reform administration are planning on axing many scrutiny committees.
It seems a proposal is going to their Council next month to axe Scrutiny Committees to save them the bother of turning up, explaining their proposals, answering questions and hearing suggestions, modifications or improvements.
As my example on the Council Tax Reduction Scheme showed, not every cut saves you money. Quite the reverse.
It seems this would be the best possible time for:
- MORE scrutiny;
- BETTER discussion of options;
- DETAILED impact assessments;
- LISTENING to others;
- TAKING scrutiny on board with humility and;
- MODIFYING proposals so they don’t have the opposite effect that that intended.
That’s what grown-ups would do.
We will soon find out if that’s what Kent County Council’s current administration will do.