New Government policies million pound cost to councils

Research from the Local Government Association (LGA) shows that this as well as having to cope with the demands of ageing demographics, will cost more than £9.6 billion by April 2011.

According to the research, the extra money that will need to be invested to implement new policies includes:
· £5,758 million for children's services outside school hours such as extended schools.
· £1,182 million to deal with increased costs of waste management and additional recycling.

In addition, over the next three years an extra £2,682 million will be needed to cope with the growing demands placed on social care services by the increasingly ageing population. There will be an extra 400,000 older people over the next 3 years, many of whom will require social care and have increasingly complex needs.

Council leaders will say that while the new policy and legislative burdens will be implemented by local councils, if the additional funding is not forthcoming then other services, such as care for the elderly, will have to be restricted.

Sir Simon Milton, chairman,LGA, said:

”Councils want to put people first by providing high quality and affordable services for local people but also will need to fund the changes central government has introduced. Without the additional funding from central government councils will unable to do both and will be forced into having to make extremely tough decisions about which services can be provided.

”With the increasing demands of caring for an ageing population it will be likely that unless the investment needed in implementing these additional new burdens comes from central government then subsidised care services for older people will have to be heavily restricted or cut.”