A councillor in David Cameron’s own Conservative-led county council has written to the prime minister to explain the implications of his government’s cuts on the area’s frontline services.
After Cameron chastised Ian Hudspeth, leader of Oxfordshire county council, for considering cuts to elderly day centres, libraries and museums, the local Conservative councillor addressed Cameron’s claims point by point, arguing that the efficiency savings Cameron suggested had already been made, and that the county was struggling to cope with large and continuing cuts to its finances.
“Our total government grants have fallen from £194m in 2009/10 to £122m a year in 2015/16, and are projected to keep falling at a similar rate. I cannot accept your description of a drop in funding of £72m or 37% as a ‘slight fall’,” Updspeth said.
Writing in an opinion article for the Guardian, George Monbiot expressed his surprise that Cameron was apparently hitherto unaware of the consequences of his own government’s austerity measures.
“As a report commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation discovered,” cited Monbiot, “the cuts in some areas are so extreme that local authority provision is now being reduced to little more than social care, child protection and other core services, while the budgets for libraries, museums, galleries, sports facilities, small parks and playgrounds, children’s centres, youth clubs, after-school and holiday clubs, planning and environmental quality have already been slashed to the point at which these can barely function.”
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