Bankrupt councils

[Dunners]

Peter Apps sounds like a character from a modern day Day Today reboot. Presenting the news with Algorithm Monthly or someone.

Apps, with Apps.

[Hoover Attack]

He's too busy rehearsing for a sitcom I've been working on. Still trying to master his lines on just how many copies of a particular fanzine the runner-up in a competition gets.

Venturing into comedy now? Interesting.

[Hoover Attack]

Peter Apps sounds like a character from a modern day Day Today reboot. Presenting the news with Algorithm Monthly or someone.

Algo Monthly used to share dorms with our new signing Ollie.

[Long slender neck]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68083108

£500m boost to be shared between councils

Wont go far I expect, but enough to survive this government?

[Dunners]

It will be split amongst upper-tier and county councils, and earmarked for social care. Lower-tier councils - which don't deliver social care - will get a funding increase from 3 to 4 per cent.

I have no idea how long this cash will last, but it's clearly just a sticking plaster.

[Dunners]

Good article here setting out how the £500m wont touch the sides.

https://insidecroydon.com/2024/01/25/go ... ons-debts/

Yet another urgent crisis for which we've moved beyond the point where there's any quick or easy solutions. They've really f*cked this country, haven't they?

[Long slender neck]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68159001

Cross party commitee says £4Bn needed to plug the funding gap

[Dunners]

£4bn to fund the current gap as of today. If this were to happen, it would merely address the symptom, but not the cause.

[Long slender neck]

I'm still not sure where all the money is going, despite rereading this thread. Housing benefit comes from central govt doesnt it?

In the link it says North Yorkshire paying £21m to transport SEN kids to school. That seems crazy.

[Friend or faux]

LSN:- SEN kids tend to be living in various locations. There are only a very few dysfunctional families where all the kids are SEN. North Yorkshire is pretty large & rural & they have to use taxis to ferry the kids to school & each taxi has to have an escort who has been police checked & also vetted via an interview ( they don't have any Tom, willy or Harriet ) ; so it don't come cheap. If they used mini buses, they would take all day just doing the pick-ups. Thurrock has been badly hit in this dept, after frittering away all our Council Tax on dodgy " investment " schemes.

[Long slender neck]

Thanks, I was just reading about this here https://www.theguardian.com/education/2 ... y-councils

The increase in demand followed the government’s 2014 Send changes, after which the number of children eligible for education, health and care plans (EHCPs) more than doubled, from 105,000 to 230,000.

Many EHCPs specify that a child should attend a particular school, making councils legally obliged to transport tens of thousands of young people over long distances across large, rural counties. The CCN said the number of children travelling to special schools had increased by 24% in the last five years.

It seems also there has been a large rise in the number of kids considered SEN.

[Omygawd]

You’re no one these days if you don’t have a label. Getting a child statemented can save a fortune in travelling costs for hard pressed families.

[Mick McQuaid]

Yeah, Martin Lewis worked out that feeding your kids a diet of blue smarties and red bull until they can get an ADHD diagnosis can save up to £25 a month in the long run. (As long as you buy from poundland rather than the supermarket)

[Long slender neck]

Councils bailed out, kind of.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... directions

Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive of the Local Government Information Unit, said the move was welcome but “we should not mistake this for generosity on the part of the government. They are simply allowing councils to borrow, and to sell their own assets.”

[Dunners]

Blimey.

[Proposition Joe]

Scarcely surprising.

[Long slender neck]

Grim. What is this £1Bn pay claim about?

[Proposition Joe]

Grim. What is this £1Bn pay claim about?

I think they basically underpaid women for decades. Or something like that.

[Currywurst and Chips]

Council spending on school transport for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) has almost doubled in the last five years

Spending is set to hit £1.4bn across local authorities in England in 2023-24, a 95% rise from £728m in 2018-19.

The rising cost of providing school transport is a key driver of the current pressure on council budgets.

Council leaders have warned overspends in this area will lead to cuts in services elsewhere as they try to balance the books and avoid following other councils who have recently gone bust.

One council, Buckinghamshire, said it was paying £952 per day for "two complex medical passengers" to travel by ambulance with a nurse.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68665303

[Long slender neck]

Why the big increase in send children?

Just like social care, the govt should be looking at why these things cost so much, instead of chucking inadequate anounts of money at it.

[Long slender neck]

Did they get the nurse from Pertemps Medical?

[Hoover Attack]

Blimey.

Sale of assets.

This is what it’s all about, as always.

[Long slender neck]

It was the equal pay claim that done it for them right though?

[Hoover Attack]

It was the equal pay claim that done it for them right though?

Typical of you. blame the underpaid women.

[Dunners]

It was the equal pay claim that done it for them right though?

Death by a thousand cuts. They were left in position whereby they were at risk of an insolvency event. The equal pay claim was just the final nail in the coffin. If it hadn't been that it would have been something else.