MORE pain is on the way for cash-strapped Liverpool, which is being walloped three times harder by the Government's austerity measures than the national average.
So says Mayor Joe Anderson after the local government settlement for 2015-16 was announced in the House of Commons. The council is now analysing the figures to see what impact it will have on the £66.7 million of savings it estimates it will have to find next year.
The Government’s own figures show Liverpool faces a reduction of 5.9 percent in ‘spending power’ in 2015/16 – compared to the national average of 1.8 percent, says the council.
However, it adds, "the "spending power" calculation does not show the full impact of the savings needed, because it offsets the real total by including, for example, income from council tax."
From 2011-2017, Liverpool has lost 58 percent of its central government grant – a total of £329 million, one of the highest reductions in the country, it claims.
Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, said: “This latest announcement does not give me any Christmas cheer, but it is hard to know how bad it really is until we have are able to dig into the detail and get behind the smoke and mirrors from Whitehall."
He went on: “Despite the challenges, we will continue to do what we can to protect the most vulnerable. We have already demonstrated this by using our own money to minimise the impact of the council tax benefit cut, supporting Credit Unions with £1 million, helping foodbanks with the Mayor’s Hope Fund and introducing the living wage for our staff.”
Once the analysis of the settlement is complete, a report will be presented to the Cabinet early in 2015 outlining the impact on the council’s finances.
