Soapbox: JRF report reveals threat to core service delivery - Grahame Smith

Last Wednesday’s report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) on the impact of austerity on local authority services painted a very bleak picture in which front-line services for the most vulnerable are suffering as local authorities desperately try to paper over the cracks.  
The situation is bad enough today.  But as the report makes clear, we are only half way through the planned budget cuts of the Coalition Government. Unless something changes, the worst is still to come. 
The Scottish Government and Scottish councils are in a difficult position.  They are not the authors of austerity and room for manoeuvre is limited.  However, the STUC has consistently argued that the Council Tax freeze which now accounts for a £500 million shortfall in public service funding has to end.  But no political party has been prepared to show the political leadership to take this issue head on.
The underfunding of services leads to job cuts and, just as detrimentally, to enormous pressures on staff who, unable to find the time or resource to plan strategic responses, are forced to fall back on crisis management.  As the report makes clear, this leads away from a networked approach to public service delivery and increases the tendency to work in silos.  This is the exact opposite of the stated aim of public service providers, who aim to deliver more connected and even more efficient service delivery.  
Being paid less for doing more and facing increasing demand for services contributes to increased stress and low morale amongst our members whether in the public or voluntary sectors.  Five years of public sector pay restraint has taken its toll and many members are at breaking point.
We fully back JRF’s call for the cuts to cease. The STUC will continue to lobby Government at all levels to act now to protect the vulnerable and those who provide lifeline services in our communities.

-Grahame Smith, STUC General Secretary