- Conference
- 2003 Local Government Service Group Conference
- Date
- 20 February 2003
- Decision
- Carried
This Conference notes with concern the continued practice of ring fencing local government finance to initiatives decided by National Governments.
The practice of ring fencing has a number of negative effects on local government and these include:
1)The fact that such money is often dressed up in the media as new money for existing services when in fact it is often subject to tight spending restrictions.
2)That such money has to be the subject of ‘beauty contest’ bids and involve expenditure in drawing up the bids in the first place which is often done using money that would otherwise go to core services.
3)That such funding is often calculated in terms of direct expenditure only and does not take into account the associated costs of items such as payroll, accommodation requirements, IT support, etc.
4)That once funding runs out the initiatives are either mainstreamed again taking money from core services or that the momentum of the initiative is lost.
Conference is extremely concerned that the ring fencing undermines the democratic process of local government where Councils are elected to respond to and to drive the initiatives with and on behalf of the local population.
This Conference calls for an end to the ring fencing of local government finances by national governments in order to restore the democratic decision making abilities to the appropriate and local level.
To this end Conference instructs the Service Group Executive to:
a)Commission research into the extent of ring fencing in local government finance, any such work to take into account the impact of devolution.
b)To continue to campaign for an end to ring fencing and to raise the profile of the campaign as appropriate.”