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These cuts will sting in the end
THE aphorism, ‘There is no such thing as a free lunch’, coined by the free market guru Milton Friedman, should resonate in Camden today.
When the Lib Dem and the Tories pledged to stem any council tax rise, the electorate fell in behind (see page 4).
But they should have known that something would have to give, someone would have to pay.
In the real world, you can either benefit from a good bank of social services, which costs money, or you can cut revenue, whatever form it takes, and suffer the consequences.
By pegging the council tax level, revenue for the Town Hall, bearing in mind the rate of inflation, is bound to fall.
The consultants KPMG argue for a slimmer Town Hall – and there is little doubt that, here and there, economies can be made which would help to keep balances down.
It is also true – and we have said this for many years – that an overload of high management salaries is often to be found among local authorities, all, to some extent, inevitable in the world of civil servants where empire building, unless tightly controlled, can get out of hand.
And one cannot help comparing KPMG’s advice to that given to many developing countries by the International Monetary Fund, (IMF) often with devastating results, so inimical that a new wave of Latin American governments are now giving it the heave-ho.
We were often critical of the former Labour administration, and sympathised with those in opposition parties who argued against over-staffing at the Town Hall.
But it has to be recognised – and by and large, Labour did so in the 1990s when it knocked the Town Hall balance sheets into shape – that there is only so much you can cut before you begin to seriously hurt people.
Yes, the world won’t come to an end by cutting back on pavement repairs, street ‘gully cleansing’ teams, even perhaps, on recycling collections, but once you start cutting back on play centres and after-school clubs, and start putting up the price of meals-on-wheels for the elderly, who suffers but the young and the old?
Labour points out that Camden, unlike many other boroughs, is getting reasonable funding from central government – and they question why such swingeing cuts have to be made.
Similar cuts were made by the Lib Dem administration in Islington – and look what happened there. They were almost swept away by Labour in the May elections, and are now hanging on with the mayor’s casting vote.
The new Town Hall rulers may be taking a dangerous road.
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