With Chris Tambini leaving Leicestershire County Council at the end of May, Room151 asked the highly respected senior officer to reflect on his time at the authority and look ahead to the future of local government finance.
I remember when I first got the senior finance post at Leicestershire back in 2010 and my retiring boss figuratively handed me the balanced four-year financial strategy. As he skipped out the door, he told me that as long as we stuck to this plan we would see out the four years of austerity, and all would be good.
Clearly, this did not pan out, with slow economic growth and austerity lasting for a decade, a pandemic, and massive pressures on all services. You do not need me to say the last decade has been tough. I do believe that the majority of councils have responded well, but I think the sector has been hollowed out and currently faces the challenge of insufficient capacity and capability. The way I can see out of this, given that a huge truckload of money is not coming our way, is threefold.
Firstly, there is some money in local authorities. However, after years of tinkering with business rate retention schemes, delays to funding reform, and use of ancient data, this money is in the wrong places (and probably explains why reserves for some local authorities are high). A fairer distribution of funding is essential and this should be coupled with structural reforms of local government to make sure we are as efficient as possible.
However, this will not ensure there are sufficient resources to fund services. Most of our costs are driven by failure demand, and in a broad sense I think this is a failure of society. Rising numbers of both children in care and children receiving special education are good examples. We do not really know the causes and as a result all we do in local government is treat the symptoms. We need to work with our sponsoring government departments to really understand the issues we face and have a consensus as to how to tackle them. This will not be easy, but it is essential.
Thirdly, we need more money, but less than we would if we didn’t undertake the first two actions!
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Senior posts in finance are incredibly pressured. It feels like since the start of the pandemic we have been in persistent firefighting mode. In the earlier part of my career there was at least some time to think. Meetings were organised and issues discussed. Decisions on the equivalent issues are now taken quickly, with little or no debate, which probably explains the problems being faced by some authorities. I recall a finance director from an even earlier generation than myself saying they used to have meetings in the 1970s to discuss how to spend the spare budget resources. I don’t think those days will ever return.
Local government at its best is brilliant. The response to the pandemic was fantastic and we continue to do great things for our communities. Delivering net zero will be a challenge, but one many local authorities are rising to. Then there is the cost of climate adaptation to address the impact on our infrastructure of rising temperatures, something as a country we have not really started to think about yet.
I do feel positive about the future. There is certainly a lot to deal with but also plenty of opportunities and many new tools to help address some of our challenges. Local government has always risen to any challenges and I am sure will continue to do so. My own plans are to take a long break over the summer, and then see what opportunities there are in the autumn.
Chris Tambini is director of corporate resources at Leicestershire County Council until the end of May, at which point he will take a break before seeking new opportunities later this year.
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