“What Will Change?”: Local Government Elections in the UK Are Facing Problems with Local Government Funding

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No dubious investment plans, failed property developments or equal pay demands have burned a hole in Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council’s books. But whichever party wins control of the West Midlands district on Thursday will still face a town hall battling bankruptcy.

The local authority northwest of Birmingham is one of the most hotly contested local elections, with all 72 seats up for grabs. Once a steel and glass manufacturing powerhouse, Sir Keir Starmer launched the Labor local election campaign in March declaring he wanted to “win”.

Like many English local authorities, Dudley, with its 330,000 residents, is caught between falling revenues and rising costs. Whoever takes the lead will not only seek to improve lives but also cut services, a factor that is causing deep disillusionment among the population in the run-up to the vote.

“Local governments don’t have enough money,” said Simon Hill, a 32-year-old bus driver. “It makes you want to vote. Nothing gets done.”

The local government financial crisis which, according to the Local Government Association, will see English local authorities facing a total deficit of £4bn over the next two years.

In Dudley, the incumbent Conservatives are determined to retain as comfortable a 14-seat majority as possible, despite a consistent 20-point national lead for Labor in the polls.

Meanwhile, Labor will have to prove it can reclaim former industrial areas like Dudley, which were ceded to the Tories during the Brexit battles and voted Leave, if they win a convincing majority in Parliament in a general election expected this year want.

“If Labor really has a 20-point lead nationally, they should take Dudley. If that’s not the case, either the polls are wrong or there is something different about Dudley and similar areas,” said Matt Cole, an expert on the region’s politics from the University of Birmingham.

Patrick Harley, the council’s Conservative leader, is confident about his party’s chances of staying. He said that despite an unexpected rise in welfare costs that almost drove the council crazy earlier this year, he had a medium-term savings plan to balance the books.

To achieve this, Dudley council, which has been hit by cuts to central government grants, rising costs of delivering services and a historic commitment to low council tax, needs to save around £37 million over the next three years.

Harley is betting that residents will be the difference between the local Conservatives and the Westminster politicians, who he acknowledges are not exactly the fashion brand of the month. “We believe our support locally continues,” he said.

But he, like his Labor rival, railed against the dysfunctional funding system that blames local authorities for growing but sometimes wildly unpredictable demand for social care and is bringing local authorities across England to their knees.

“We were flying quite well 18 months ago. . . Then we had to spend £7 million too much on adult social care,” he said. The costs only related to five complex individual cases.

Nearby Labor-run Birmingham is one of a handful of authorities recently driven into virtual bankruptcy by mismanagement of finances, in the city’s case over an equal pay demand.

But Dudley is an example of the type of council the LGA recently warned about, which has done nothing bad but is still in a serious situation. Westminster Conservatives’ cuts to central government funding since 2010 mean they are struggling to maintain basic maintenance of roads and parks while meeting rising demand for social services.

Pete Lowe, leader of the Labor opposition on the council, said cynicism among residents had been exacerbated by both the slow pace of delivery and the small lack of investment relative to need, spoken of by former prime minister Boris Johnson, as he promised in a speech in Dudley in 2020 to “unite and level” the country.

“Significant promises have been made to the people of Dudley about the benefits of upgrading for working people. . . These promises have been broken. . . which ends up disenfranchising everyone,” he said.

“Our job in the Labor Party is to say: ‘Actually there is an alternative’.”

A straw poll in the center of the city provides little information about which of the parties will prevail. Muff Sourani, a union organizer, said he would normally vote Labor. But the party’s move toward the political center had alienated him.

“All communities are in a difficult financial situation. . . Normally I would blame the Tories, but Labor has moved so far to the right that it has created a situation where there is little difference between them,” he said.

Other voters said they would decide that day.

“I feel a real sense of decline,” said Enid, a 74-year-old retired nurse who has voted both ways in the past. “I think about it a lot, but I ask myself: What will change?”