The government’s announcement could be a disaster in disguise for Swindon. Despite the fanfare around George Osborne’s announcement at party conference, the realities we are hearing will be much, much different. The Communities Secretary has already said the devolution of business rates will not mean any additional money for councils.
The Swindon Labour Group Leader, Councillor Jim Grant, has attacked the government’s announcement to devolve business rates income to local authorities.
Since the announcement by George Osborne at the Conservative Party Conference, government ministers have said local authorities will be expected to fund a wide range of additional responsibilities when taking on full retention of business rates in 2020. They have also said that the full retention of business rates would not mean any additional monies for local councils and that local authorities without elected Mayors will have little scope for amending business rates levels for companies.
The Leader of the Labour Group, Councillor Jim Grant, said: “I think the government’s announcement could be a disaster in disguise for Swindon. Despite the fanfare around George Osborne’s announcement at party conference, the realities we are hearing will be much, much different. The Communities Secretary has already said the devolution of business rates will not mean any additional money for councils. And we understand that any further devolution of business rates to local authorities will come with additional responsibilities which will likely cost more than the new business rates income, so in actual fact local authorities will have to cut more because of these changes.
The government have also said that local authorities like Swindon Council will not be able to increase business rates so to call this policy the devolution of decision-making down to local government is frankly nonsense as we will simply be recycling the money to services that the government had been previously providing.
The one seed of hope from this announcement is that it makes it easier in future years for the government to allow local authorities to have more freedoms in how it uses business rates which could offer an opportunity for helping small businesses and start-up companies.”