Study warns that authorities will have to focus on core services, leaving others such as libraries and leisure centres at risk
Local council funding for "quality of life" services such as leisure centres, libraries and playgrounds will largely disappear in the next three years as authorities focus their depleted resources on crisis interventions for the poorest people, a study says.
The report on spending and savings plans found that by 2015 many councils in England will have exhausted "back office" efficiency savings. As a result they will be forced to reduce core services to the bare bones, while any services they have no legal obligation to provide will be at risk of being cut entirely.
Only a rump of services used predominantly by the poorest and most vulnerable residents, such as child protection and elderly care, will remain, warns the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) report, as universal services enjoyed by all sections of the community face the axe.
Children's centres, youth services, arts and culture activities, neighbourhood wardens and street cleaning are already being cut back, while social care services for elderly people are being restricted to those with the most critical needs, it says.
The impact of funding decisions will increasingly be felt by the wider public, the study warns, as councils are forced to make fundamental choices about how to deploy their shrinking funds: "To cope with the cuts to come, it [local government] is being forced to reconsider what services it can provide and for whom."
Councils are drawing up budgets for the 2014-15 financial year on the back of three years of cuts and rising demand for social care. English councils' funding is being cut by 29% over five years to 2015, the study says, making local government "one of the foremost casualties of austerity in the UK".
The stresses facing local authorities are underlined in a separate report published by the Audit Commission, which reveals that one in 10 of England's 353 local authorities are in danger of going bust, while almost a third experienced "financial stress" in 2012-13 as a result of cuts in government funding.
The commission says the poorest authorities have carried a greater cuts burden than their more affluent counterparts: almost half (49%) of English councils covering the 20% most deprived areas faced cuts of more than 15% in 2013/14 compared with 2010/11. Fewer than one in 10 councils (8%) in the most wealthy areas suffered reductions on such a scale.
The JRF study found that councils in the north and the Midlands had seen their spending power reduced by £100 a head more than in affluent areas, and that government-imposed funding reductions were proportionately greater in Labour-controlled councils than Tory or Liberal Democrat authorities.
John Low, policy and research manager at JRF, said: "As we approach the fourth austerity settlement for local government in December, it is clear the cuts are biting deep into the poorest and most deprived communities. Unless we can muster the national will to correct or mitigate the unacceptable divergence of resources between more and less affluent authorities, we are slowly but inexorably creating a more divided society."
However, Brandon Lewis, the local government minister, argued that deprived areas "continue to receive and spend far more funding per household than other parts of the country" in absolute terms.
He said: "Councils should be making sensible savings, such as through joint working, cutting fraud, better procurement and tackling tax evasion. Rather than the doom and gloom peddled by the JRF, the latest independent polling shows that the public are more satisfied with town hall services than ever before."
The JRF study, carried out by academics at Glasgow and Edinburgh universities, is the second part of an in-depth research project analysing the distribution and impact of local government funding cuts, and how councils and residents cope with them. It examined three councils in detail: Newcastle upon Tyne, Milton Keynes and Coventry.
It found that where funding is cut from services such as libraries, parks and even litter collection, councils were increasingly expecting communities to step in. "If budget cuts continue at the levels anticipated, all but the most vulnerable will be expected to do more for themselves and to supplement state services with commercial alternatives," said Annette Hastings, a co-author of the report.
So far, local services predominantly used by wealthier groups – such as arts and culture – have faced the highest percentage cuts, while those used by poorer residents, such as social care, have been relatively protected.
But the study says this degree of insulation will not continue and that the poorest communities, who rely most on council services, will be worst affected. It says: "It needs to be constantly borne in mind that public services play a much more important role in the lives of people on low incomes compared to those living in more affluent circumstances. Poor people cannot replace a visit to the library or free museum with a visit to the bookshop or theatre. Neither can they augment the care funded by local government with care purchased from the market."
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