Fighting for fairer funding for elderly people's services

The Leader of Herefordshire Council has added this authority’s weight to a national campaign demanding fairer funding from central government to help pay for services to the elderly.

Cllr Roger Phillips, along with the leaders of around 20 other local authorities, has written to The Times to draw attention to the issue.

He has spoken with Lord Hanningfield, Leader of Essex County Council, who has called for a debate in the House of Lords.

Lord Hanningfield described the current situation as “unsustainable,” with local authorities being forced to hike up council tax to maintain current levels of service to elderly people.

At the end of last month the government announced that Herefordshire Council will get a 3.4 per cent increase in its funding it receives from government.

This compares with an increase of 4.2 per cent granted to other, similar unitary authorities across the UK.

At the time of the announcement, Cllr Mike Wilson, the council’s cabinet member for resources, said he was dismayed with the smaller than average increase.

“Herefordshire is stretched to deliver services throughout a large, sparsely populated area. On top of this we have an added pressure as forecasts indicate a 20 per cent rise in numbers of retired people living in the county by 2011 – this is much larger than that expected for this age group in England and Wales.

Cllr Phillips added: “It’s simply not realistic to expect to be able to continue providing the level and quality of services we currently provide with these miserly increases the government keeps on giving us.

“We’re in a unique position in Herefordshire: we have a very sparsely populated area (less people per hectare than any other county in the UK), and the percentage of elderly people within our population is growing faster here than anywhere else in the country.

“The government stresses that we must keep council tax increases low. We wholeheartedly agree with this as we have a large number of families on fixed and low incomes.

“But we need the support of government to enable us to continue to provide the kind of services our growing elderly population require.

“As a result, I hope government sits up and takes note of the debate in the House of Lords and offers us more equitable funding which will allow us to improve the quality of services we offer to elderly people in the county,” added Cllr Phillips.

Government is due to announce its three-year funding settlement for local government in 2008.