Guildford Lib Dem View on the 2022-23 GBC budget

By Cllr James Steel, Councillor for Westborough and Lead Councillor for the Environment
8th February 2022

The 2022-23 budget is probably the most difficult budget Guildford Borough Council (GBC) has put together for a generation.

What measures are being taken?

There are a range of measures in place to balance the budget and make sure the council is on a sustainable footing long term and can keep serving all of Guildford's residents. We have had to make some very tough decisions. My responsibility (I hold the Environment portfolio) has borne the brunt of these tough decisions including a proposal of closing 4 or 5 of the 15 public toilets the council funds, as well as the removal of grant funding for Ash and Shere for their public toilets - a saving of £65k every year.

Due to the Conservative government cuts to local councils (Guildford once received £4million per year from Westminster but now receives nothing) we are having to reduce Yvonne Arnaud funding from £310k a year down to £200k a year over the next three years. It is frankly shocking to see the Conservative MP for Guildford whinging on social media about this cut that has been forced upon us by her government. If she really cared about the funding of arts here locally in her constituency she would be lobbying the Chancellor to reinstate local council funding from the central pot. She is not in a position to lecture anyone about local cuts until she pulls her finger out and starts fighting for the reinstatement of central government funding.

There has also been a successful contract renegotiation with HQT theatres that run G-Live to reduce our operational funding from £327k a year to £275k a year, giving us a saving of £52k. As a council, we are also looking at ways we can run the museum, heritage, and tourism information services more effectively and efficiently to reduce expenditure while keeping the service innovative and exciting for visitors.

Sadly, we have also had to reduce the council's grant to the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB). No council or councillor wants to do this. We are all residents too, but with the Conservatives refusing to support borough councils these unpleasant decisions have to be made.

The council has been working particularly hard to save money on back-office costs as doing so helps to ensure best value for residents and minimise cuts to public-facing services. An example of this is the collaboration between Guildford and Waverley Borough Councils through which we are looking to make savings of up to £700k over the next four years. This will be achieved by merging the management team of both councils so there is one Chief Executive plus the Directors of Services covering both Guildford and Waverley. Tom Horwood has already filled the Chief Executive position.

We have saved money by cancelling the Mayoral car, thereby saving residents £50k a year; we now use a local private hire service instead. We are also looking to reduce costs on our current buildings such as Millmead House and by looking at what staffing accommodation we need in future. To add to this, GBC recently finished the second stage of its staffing restructure 'Future Guildford' which has already saved £7 million for local residents.

What is being done to increase Council income?

There are two main ways in which council income (revenue) will be increased: through increasing car parking charges and council tax. When it comes to parking charges some of you will be aware that parking makes up a quarter of all day-to-day revenue created for GBC. At its peak, GBC received around £1 million a month from parking revenue and this was a major source of income that helped it balance its books. As you can imagine, the COVID pandemic has had a huge impact. Parking income is still down by a significant amount and these small increases in parking charges will aim to get back to the £1 million a month figure. A note here about parking. Guildford Borough Council manages parking (and charges) in the borough's car parks. All on-street parking (and charges) is managed by the Conservatives running Surrey County Council.

The other income generator is council tax, but bear in mind that GBCreceives only 9% of your council tax bill (Surrey County Council receives 75% and 14% goes to the Police & Crime Commissioner). District councils, including GBC, are allowed (by law) to increase council tax by a maximum of 2.99% without needing to go to a referendum (public vote). This year GBC will be increasing council tax locally by 2.75% - an increase well below current inflation of 5.5%. This will raise around £300k for the council, significantly less than parking income. We have done our best to keep the increase as low as we possibly could given the circumstances.

These changes allow GBC to limit the reductions needed in other services and ensure the maximum level of good service is provided by the council.

Why doesn't central Government step in and help?

Central Government could indeed step in to help and Guildford Borough Council would welcome any additional funding it could get from central government. However currently the political direction in Westminster from the Conservative administration is one of 'one-off yearly handouts' and this only relates to COVID related grants, not long-term financial support which can be used to do long term financial planning. This means the £3 million we get in business rates is the only funding we get from central Government when just seven years ago we received around £8 million from a mixture of money from support grants and the new homes bonus.

That is a reduction of £5 million from central Government to Guildford Borough Council - the shortfall has to be found somewhere.

We urge the Conservative MP here, now she is no longer a Government minister, to lobby the Government for fair funding of local authorities so that they can provide the best services for residents. Does she care enough about Guildford to take this challenge on? Let's see.

Are there any positives to this budget?

Due to the way, by law, our day-to-day account has to stay separate from our building and projects account, we are still able to put in place projects that will benefit the Borough and for this we have three pieces of good news:

• The major positive news for the forthcoming year was announced by my ward colleague, Cllr Julia McShane, concerning the £142 million investment into the Council's housing stock and development .
• We are also able to fund 'Shaping Guildford's Future' which will enable residents to help create the plans for the town centre going into the future.
• Plus we are using the accrued contract fee building work fund from Freedom Leisure to build new and inclusive changing facilities at the Guildford Lido

What is the Opposition suggesting?

The Conservatives are very good at saying one thing and doing another, illustrated recently by the behaviour of Boris Johnson and his staff in Downing Street during their breaking of their own lockdown rules. It's the same in relation to Guildford's budget - nationally the Conservatives have put the squeeze on councils whilst at the same time they complain locally when others have to make tough choices to deal with the consequences of choices made by their Conservative colleagues in Government.

The hypocrisy of their position is typically 100% Conservative behaviour.

Currently, Guildford Conservatives are quiet on this front. We have repeatedly asked in the council chamber for them to present their alternative plans and to date, they have failed to materialise. However, we have heard from Guildford's Conservative MP. At the Guildford Forum meeting last week, she commented that GBC would just stick its head in the sand, blow through the reserves and 'hope' things improve. You only need to look at how that has worked at Conservative-run Surrey County Council (where they were very close to going into special measures and would then have been unable to run basic children and social care services) to see how well that would go.

It is incredibly disappointing from the so-called "party of fiscal responsibility" but which is in fact, anything but.

In summary, this is a very difficult budget at a very difficult time. It is not a budget that I, nor any of my colleagues in the Liberal Democrats or Residents for Guildford and Villages (with whom we share the administration of GBC) would wish to put forward under normal circumstances. This budget does however show quite starkly what happens when central Government fails to provide proper funding for local councils at a time when demand for council services continues to increase. As a result, difficult decisions have to be made and there is inevitably an impact on the local community.

The shared Liberal Democrat and Residents for Guildford and Villages administration of Guildford Borough Council have worked hard, alongside council staff, to minimise the negative impact of Government funding cuts on local people, whilst at the same time balancing the books and ensuring GBC's future.