COUNCILS making thousands of redundancies and multi-million budget cuts have been told to stop complaining by a senior Conservative minister.
Local Government minister Brandon Lewis said it was time other councils followed the lead of Tory controlled North Tyneside and accepted the cuts challenge facing them.
Complaints made by Coun Nick Forbes, the leader of Newcastle City Council, to the Government over the city’s financial settlement were knocked by the under secretary for the Department of Communities and Local Government, as he visited small businesses in the region. Singling out Coun Forbes’ reaction to reductions in grants from Central Government to the local authority, he said: “He’s wrong – it’s a fair deal. The financial deal is fair to North and South. We are in tough economic times and central Government has less money to spend.”
Comparing the local authority’s handling of their budget setting process to North Tyneside’s, Mr Lewis said the authority’s directly elected mayoral structure had eased the way.
“You’ve got to look at why is North Tyneside not complaining,” he said.
“You’ve got a directly-elected mayor who’s getting on and doing what matters to people which is delivering good public services. North Tyneside is getting on with spending that money efficiently and correctly.
“It’s a really good example of how a directly-elected major gives you the opportunity to get that focal point of one very publicly accountable person.
“It’s easier for businesses to deal with,” he added.
During his tour of North Tyneside the minister met with business leaders from Advanced Industrial Solutions at the Tyne Tunnel Trading Estate, North Shields and Accenture at Cobalt Business Park. He also urged Newcastle City Council against any potential scaling back of its economic development plans.
“The best thing a local authority can do is develop it’s economic institutions and it’s short sighted to talk about cutting it because in the long run they are talking about cutting their own income.
“They are responsible for the money they get.
“Money in the future is coming from business rates.”
Coun Forbes said: “I’ve taken the fight to Government about the fairness of our financial situation and it’s not surprising that he’s trying to muddy the waters but people in Newcastle know that a Conservative led Government is doing significant damage to our community.
“How can a minister possibly claim that Newcastle’s settlement is fair when we’re losing £218 per head when some councils are losing £27 per head.
“It’s not surprising that Newcastle has been more high profile than North Tyneside because what we have done is illustrate three years of impact. North Tyneside as yet haven’t even managed to set a one-year budget.”
