Chris Buss: A 151’s lessons from 2020 and hopes for the New Year

Chris Buss on the lessons for section 151 officers have learned in 2020 and what they might hope in the New Year.

“So, this is Christmas and what have you done? Another year over and a new one just begun.” So sang John Lennon 49 years ago. Written during the Vietnam conflict, it came with a subtext of war coming to an end. It was a different type of Christmas single for a different era which had hope and optimism in what at the time seemed a bleak landscape.

2020 has, perhaps, been a year like no other for the country since the end of the second world war. For section 151 officers it has been one where past decisions have been tested and old assumptions challenged. So what has been learnt and what can be hoped for going forward?

Lessons

I hope that we have all learnt, yet again, that central government doesn’t really understand how local councils work and, in particular, how they are financed. This is perhaps best illustrated by the “Alice in Wonderland” accounting for dedicated schools grant deficits. However, they also don’t get the fine lines between NHS and adult social care, the interdependence between the two, and how pouring cash by the bucket load at one doesn’t fix chronic under funding and basic funding unfairness for the other. I’m still trying to work out why cancer care is NHS funded yet long-term dementia is classed as social care.

Another lesson absorbed (which, like the first, is a well-worn repeat) is don’t believe that central government will stick to its word when it comes to local government and fully funding new burdens.

For years we’ve lived with the government view that it will fully fund all new burdens under the new burdens’ doctrine. The Covid-19 crisis has confirmed what many of us had known for years: this is a myth.

The third lesson is a personal one for section 151 officers: your statutory duties are yours and yours alone and it’s your professional judgement that will be called into account when things go wrong.

I suspect that in early 2021 a great deal of thought will go into signing off section 25 statements on the robustness of reserves, perhaps much more so than in previous years. There may be pressure to reduce reserves to push back unpalatable budget choices due to local circumstances, but this—if it undermines the robustness of reserves—should rightly be resisted.

Difficult decisions will need to be made but not at the expense of robust and sustained financial management. We are starting to see the results of keeping reserves too low in some councils.

Future views

So, what of the future? Well, hopefully we can get local government funding back on a firm footing, in particular in terms of certainty. Persistent one-year fixes are the application of sticking plasters on an ncreasingly fragile system.

It is difficult to think of any other system of taxation that relies upon housing values that are 30-years old, as a base, and becoming ever more detached from reality as house prices move at different rates across the country.

Take two examples: houses prices in Kensington and Chelsea have surged by more than 600% in the period while average prices in Hull have risen by just over 200%. But the underlying assumption is that both have gone up by similar proportions. It’s time this was examined quickly and fairly, including a look at how council tax is measured and valued as part of any fair funding review. To do otherwise is to leave embedded unfairness locked into the system of raising resources.

As part of ending the persistent kicking of cans down the road, answers need to be sought on the future of business rates as a tax base, which is increasingly anachronistic and leaves shop-based retailers at a disadvantage when competing with online competition.

And let’s end the charade that this is a local tax. It isn’t. As it says on the tin, it’s “national non domestic rates”.

The final hope is for a proper resolution to funding social care and to the persistent worry—for many older people, or those that care for adults with disabilities—that the system is a postcode lottery. A properly funded care system with national standards really shouldn’t be beyond our ability to design.

The above are three big asks. Do I think they’ll be dealt with? To be honest, no. But we can live in hope.

Finally, going back to the song, may I wish you all “A very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Let’s hope it’s a good one, without any fear.”

Chris Buss is a former sec 151 officer and Director of Darenace Ltd.

Photo (cropped): Photo by Jan Antonin Kolar on Unsplash.