Comprehensive spending review

The Comprehensive Spending Review 2007 (CSR07) is the first since 1997 and represents a long-term fundamental review of Government spending across all departments. It will cover Government departmental expenditure for the years 2008/09, 2009/10 and 2010/11.

Where does CSS stand?

Transport

Whilst we have seen a significant increase in spending on transport since 2000, there is real concern about the ability to deliver the improvements we believe central and local Government wish to see made to our transport system. In addition to the limiting effect of current and expected future levels of funding to meet targets and to address increasing pressures and greater customer expectations, progress is being constrained by the funding regime currently in place.

The resource pressures facing our member authorities now and in the future can be summarised as:

• Tackling the road maintenance backlog
• Inflationary pressures
• The imbalance between revenue and capital budgets
• New burdens, including meeting the requirements of the Traffic Management Act, delivering Accessibility Planning strategies and the Concessionary Fares scheme.

Waste Management

There is a crisis looming within local and national Government in respect of waste management for the following reasons:

Rising Costs – The substantial increases in capital and revenue costs of waste management are not being matched by Government grant settlements resulting in diversion of funding from other front line services

Delivery of New Waste Treatment Facilities -There is evidence emerging that there is a very strong likelihood that many of the new waste treatment plants required to divert waste from landfill will not be delivered in time for some individual authorities and the nation as a whole to meet landfill allowance targets in critical years e.g. 2009/10.

We are keen to ensure that CSR2007 allocates sufficient capital and revenue funding for waste management to ensure that local authorities can meet the obligations of the Landfill Directive without diverting funding away from other front line services, for example highways and transport budgets. We also seek a fundamental review of the PFI process for waste procurement to speed it up, create more certainty throughout the process, and increase the flexibility for the phased introduction of further investment.

Economic Development & Regeneration

Government figures suggest there was an overall increase in local authority spending on economic development and regeneration during the period 2001-04, yet information from around the country now indicates a downward trend or at best a standstill position, despite successive years of accommodating extra budget pressures.

There is a widespread and increasing reliance on securing resources from EU, Government and RDA sources. The inevitable decline in EU funding from 2007 onwards as a consequence of the expansion of the Union, the final ending of the Single Regeneration Budget, the uncertainty over future NRF funding, the limited availability of LEGI funding, and the limitations of LAGBI all combine to indicate difficult times ahead.

We believe that CSR07 needs to:

• recognise the increasing demands on resources for local authority economic development and regeneration
• recognise the uncertainty of local authority economic development and regeneration funding and provide reassurance on future funding, including replacement national resources to offset the expected reduction in EU and other funding opportunities
• provide more discretion to pool sources of grant aid to provide the flexibility necessary for the most efficient and effective use of external funding.
• extend LEGI to benefit all areas with low levels of enterprise, including rural and semi-rural areas
• revise LABGI to provide more incentive for local authorities to devote extra resources to economic development and regeneration.