A Unison member
The financial crisis at Nottingham City Council and the section 114 notice, issued in November 2023, continues.
This means all new spending must be signed off by the Chief Finance Officer. Managers spend huge amounts of time filling in paperwork for often very small amounts of money, meaning they are taken away from their ‘day job’.
As well as this year’s financial crisis, the council faces an estimated shortfall of £50 million in the year 2024-25.
Current proposals to achieve these cuts are horrendous, involving attacks on critical frontline services and 554 full-time-equivalent (FTE) posts at risk over four years. The three council adult residential homes are threatened, as is the much-loved Jackdawe homecare service for adults with complex and challenging behaviours.
The library service faces 31 FTE jobs being cut, although the council is likely to think twice about further library closures after a recent magnificent campaign saved three libraries. The welfare rights service is under threat, as is the remaining young people’s centre, and an adventure playground, with many other services at risk.
In response to the threat of government commissioners coming in, the Labour council has essentially told the government there is no need, as they can make the cuts themselves!
Disgracefully, the council has only allowed four weeks for the public consultation on these cuts, and that included the Christmas break. Contrary to previous years, it organised only four public consultation meetings, only one of which was in-person. The union Unison has challenged this.
Unison
Nottingham City Unison branch is organising meetings with members, and held a joint protest before Christmas with other council trade unions and the trades council. We have produced model letters to MPs and councillors, and are holding a public meeting jointly with the trades council, Unite and GMB unions, with a German film company attending to film for a documentary on “Broke Councils”.
With over one million jobs gone in local government in the last ten years and 20% of councils staring into a financial abyss, the potential is there for Unison, the biggest union in local government, to organise a national fightback.
Nottingham City Council has lost an average of £97 million each year for the last ten years in government spending. Unison’s national local government committee needs to organise a national meeting of all affected branches to mount a campaign and coordinate branches to fight against the slaughter of jobs and services.
In Nottingham, usable finance reserves have been utilised to reduce but not prevent previous cuts in services – despite councillors previously telling us they couldn’t use them. However, the council never refused to make cuts and use the time they could have gained from using reserves and other legal routes to balance their budget to build a mass campaign to fight for the money needed.
In Nottingham, City Council spending and governance has also been overseen by a an Improvement and Assurance Board led by Sir Tony Redmond since early 2021. There is only one councillor on it.
Labour
No Labour councillor has yet spoken out publicly against the proposed cuts, whether or not they have made some words of opposition in the Labour group. However, it is not too late for a group of councillors to do so, and it is possible for the council to set a legal ‘balanced’ budget that does not involve cuts.
The council should demand direct support – a bailout – from government, to cover the £50 million gap next year and what remains of the current year’s deficit.
There is recent precedent for this sort of government support. In 2022, Surrey County Council was given £100 million in return for a restructuring of its special educational needs provision.
These were both Tory councils but there is nothing to stop a Labour council like Nottingham campaigning for additional financial support.
Given the timidity and compliance of the Labour council so far, such a campaign is unlikely, but a local trade union and community campaign can do so.
Anger
There is huge anger that can be mobilised within the council workforce and local communities to stop this attack on local government jobs and services.
This anger also needs directing to the Labour leadership, in anticipation of a Starmer-led government, to say that they need to commit to reimbursing councils that have to borrow or use reserves to avoid making cuts, before council services in many areas are reduced to the bare statutory minimum.
