Four Green Councillors set out the continuing state of the local government funding crisis
In the coming months, local councils across the UK are facing tough decisions around their budgets. These are the first under the new Labour government, elected in 2024 under a banner of change. Despite uplifts in government funding for children’s services, social care and health budgets, many councils are facing desperate challenges. Austerity under Labour might feel different – but it is still austerity.
In the period from 2010-2024, councils’ core funding is set to see a real-term reduction of at least 9% according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. In larger councils with areas of high deprivation, these reductions are set to be a real-term reduction of 26% per person.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, austerity became the new normal – a way of weaponising debt, and further entrenching inequality. UK taxpayers shouldered the burden of bailing out the bankers who caused the financial collapse, whilst seeing public services stripped to the bone under the narrative of austerity.
In recent years, economic stagnation, the rising cost of living crisis, cuts to public services and falling incomes have created a deeply damaging situation in which millions in the UK are struggling. At the same time, the very richest have felt none of the cost of this.
At a local level, there has been a weak assumption that volunteers could ‘pull together’ to plug the gaps in public services which austerity and privatisation have left threadbare. Labour and Conservative governance acts to protect the interests of capitalist management structures and our local services continue to be eroded.
We Green councillors challenge this damaging austerity agenda, with a call for genuine change. Below are personal reflections from each of us on the challenges that we face in negotiating budgets.
Councillor Nicola Day, Peterborough City Council:
I was involved in ongoing budget discussions at Peterborough City Council where cuts were proposed to the library services, museum opening hours and a mothballing of the local lido (the only remaining city pool). As Greens we raised our concerns and after an outcry following the public consultation, cuts to the Lido were removed, whilst the library and museum cuts were put on review.
It will often be the poorest people who access libraries for books, IT services and signposting to other services who will be most affected. Closing most of our libraries would also cause social isolation for those who enjoy visiting the group sessions and events that libraries offer. I run my own councillor surgery in our local library, it is a warm, comfortable and safe space that also hosts skills workshops and events for all ages. I strongly believe that closing 7 out of our 10 libraries would be wrong. Threats of closures and cuts also pit local communities against each other in a battle to save services which is socially divisive. The public budget consultation and the outcry from our city’s residents show that austerity budgets are not welcomed by our local community. The cuts to these libraries have now been reviewed – although they have still not been taken off the table completely.
Councillor Zoë Garbett, Hackney Council:
At Hackney Council I have heard promises that a Labour Government will make all the difference, yet they are parroting the lines last year used under a Conservative government. There ‘being no money’ and ‘given the financial situation’ is the language of austerity, being used to justify a budget of cuts. Despite some uplifts in funding, the Hackney Mayor and Cabinet are being dishonest about the cuts being made, they are often hidden away in the Cabinet papers.
Proposals include scrapping the funding for Hackney Carnival groups, which will mean the end of the Hackney Carnival, and further changes to libraries after redundancies with likely reductions in opening hours. An equalities impact assessment states that the cuts will disproportionately negatively impact Black residents and children with SEND and their families. The Council simply isn’t listening to residents: last year they made cuts to youth services where young people feel ‘everything they loved will be lost’.”
Councillor Nick Morphet, Northumberland County Council:
At Northumberland Council the Green Party feels that the administration and finance officers have done a good job of setting the budget in a very difficult situation. However we are very disappointed that the new government hasn’t yet put an end to austerity and improved local government finance. As a result of its failure to do so, we’re being asked to agree to a 4.55% increase in council tax (an unfair tax), to eat even further into our reserves and to make £16.3m of savings which will disproportionately disadvantage women. Austerity is a choice, and it’s because we want nothing to do with it or the consequences of it that we won’t be voting for this budget.
Councillor David Francis, South Tyneside Council:
Despite a change in government, the harsh reality for local councils remains unchanged—South Tyneside, one of the most deprived boroughs in England, is still being forced to implement an austerity-driven budget that demands more from residents while delivering less. The services we provide are not luxuries; they are lifelines.
This year’s budget sees £1.2 million in vacancy closures (cuts through stealth), reductions in street scene services, and cuts to vital support for children and families. At the same time, residents face a 4.95% increase in Council Tax, effectively paying more for fewer services. These cuts don’t just erode local infrastructure—they hit the most vulnerable hardest, undermining the council’s own ambitions for financial security, strong communities, and fairness. Yet, Labour councillors continue to follow the party line rather than fighting for a fairer deal for South Tyneside. Austerity remains a political choice, and the people of this borough deserve representatives willing to challenge the system rather than simply administering its failures.”
We, as Green Councillors, are calling out the Labour government and their choice of austerity. With so many councils facing significant and similar pressures across the UK, there is clearly something wrong. The capitalist system is a game that is motivated by private profit, the rules of which are decided by those who are winning. Our only option is to destroy the rulebook and break the game.
Image credit: Kirsty O’Connor – Creative Commons
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