Leader of Islington Council, Cllr Richard Watts, wrote this week in the Evening Standard about the Tory-led Government’s massive cuts to local councils and the impact yet more cuts would have on services. 

Cllr Watts wrote – 

Your editorial on Monday about the impact of further major cuts to public spending is too complacent.

Local councils have been making the kind of relatively pain-free efficiency savings you suggest for four years now. My own authority has cut its spending by more than £100?million this way.

However, these efficiencies cannot keep being found. If, say, you’ve shared your public health department once (as Islington and Camden councils have done) you can’t do it again and again and expect to keep on saving money.

Substantial further cuts to local councils can only be made by cutting deep into valued public services. Such cuts would be deeply damaging and a false economy that will pile costs onto the state elsewhere.

Cllr Richard Watts, Leader of Islington Council

Cllr Watts has also written about the need to give local councils a secure financial future and why giving councils the powers they need to help improve services and get results, is good for everyone.