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It is official - Liverpool is the UK city that has been most devastated by the Tory government's budget cuts and austerity agenda.

Since 2009/10, every person living in Liverpool has shouldered the burden of the equivalent of an £816 fall each in day-to-day council spending.

To put that into stark perspective, everyone in Oxford has had a £115 increase in day to day cash spent on them in that same period.

The figures - which form part of the Centre for Cities' latest Outlook Report - appear to confirm what many in the city and its council believe: that Liverpool and its people are treated unfairly by the Government.

The total fall in the council budgets during this period since 2009/10 was 32%, the second highest in Britain after Barnsley.

This puts cuts to local government services in Liverpool 18 percentage points higher than the national average in real terms, which works out at £529 above the national average per head.

Liverpool MP responds to claims that austerity is over

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The crippling effect of the cuts



Liverpool Council has been forced to make do with less by becoming more efficient - but as the Centre for Cities points out, the severe funding cuts coupled with an increase in demand for social care across the city has led to budgets being slashed in other areas.

For example, spending on public conveniences such as toilets in the city has fallen by 98% over the past decade, while council spending on tourism has dropped by 67% and arts development and support by 57%.

(Image: Liverpool Echo/James Maloney)

The growing demand for social care has added to the squeeze on council finances in Liverpool.

Across Britain, more and more cities are spending greater proportions of their budgets on social care, adding to the overall pressure on their finances.

If this pattern continues, the only role for many councils will be to provide social care.

Liverpool Council's budget woes The amount of cuts faced by Liverpool Council since 2010 £444m The total amount made from Council Tax in 2010 £220m The total amount the council makes from Council Tax now £170m

The report found that the cities least equipped to absorb the loss of central government grants have been hardest hit due to their weaker local economies.

They are less able to raise money locally, for example through council tax increases. This applies most strongly outside the South of England.

The report urges the Government to use the Spending Review to ensure that its promise to end austerity fully applies to local government, and in particular to cities.



"Little more than social care providers"

Andrew Carter, Centre for Cities Chief Executive, said: “Cities drive the national economy and, while austerity has improved local government efficiency, its sheer scale has placed public services in Liverpool under huge pressure.

"Cities Outlook 2019 shows that the cities most affected are economically weaker and have been less able to absorb the loss of central government funding.

“Liverpool Council has managed as best they can but the continued singling-out of local government for cuts cannot continue. There is a very real risk that many of our largest councils will in the near future become little more than social care providers. Fairer funding must mean more funding for Liverpool.

“If, as the Prime Minister has said, austerity is coming to an end then the Spending Review must address the financial challenges facing Liverpool councils. But this does not just mean more money.

"Giving local authorities more power to decide how they raise and spend funds, providing more flexible multi-year budgets and reforming the way social care is paid for also need to be urgently introduced.”



"They just don't get it"

As Mr Carter said, at last year's Conservative Party conference, Theresa May made the bold claim that 'austerity is over.'

For Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson, that couldn't be further from the truth.

(Image: James Maloney)

Since he came to power in 2010, he has seen his council budget slashes massively - meaning that by 2020 they will have lost a total of £444m - that's 64% of the council’s overall budget over the last decade.

Struggling to add up £3m what every 1% budget cut means in real money £8.4m Public Health Grant cut in real terms 21,000 Adult social care requests each year

The National Audit Office has reported that local government has seen a real terms cut in funding of 49.1% from 2010/11 to 2017/18.

And the Government’s own published ‘Core Spending Power’ figures show that Liverpool City Council would have been £72m better off by 2019/20 if it had incurred funding cuts in line with the national average for all English councils.

Mayor Joe Anderson said: “This report confirms what I’ve been saying for years. We’ve not been asking for special treatment – just fairness. If we’d have had the average cut of other councils we’d be £80 million better off.

“Since 2010 we’ve cut around 3,000 staff, and had to take tough decisions on all areas of spending including adult social care, transferring some libraries and youth centres to the voluntary sector and selling buildings.

“We’ve worked hard to keep all of our children’s centres and leisure centres open and continued to run the best cultural events programme in the country.

"We are doing great things around infrastructure such as housing, regeneration and jobs by being entrepreneurial and creative, but we are being held back by the cuts in day-to-day spending.

“We’re making millions of pounds every year from our innovative ‘Invest to Earn’ strategy, where we make smart investments that deliver a return, but instead of using that money to grow the economy further we are having to use it to plug the cuts made by Central Government.

“My fear is that with Brexit dominating the domestic political agenda and Parliament in deadlock, the needs of desperate councils – especially larger urban authorities – are way down the ministerial pecking order.

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“The Government is turning a blind eye to the reality of what is happening to local authorities, in particular the poorest.

"We are limited in the amount we can bring in from council tax because Government has restricted rises and most of our properties are small terraces. For instance, we get £174 million in Council Tax and we spend £172 million on adult social care - it doesn’t take a mathematician to see that this isn’t sustainable.

“Government urgently needs to revisit its plans for the funding formula and try and come up with one that is genuinely fair to everybody across the country. Only by doing so can places like Liverpool actually meet its needs and requirements to help those most in need.

“We also need more freedoms and loosening of the Whitehall purse strings so we can return to an era where councils devised their own practical solutions to problems, so we aren’t waiting for an end to ministerial indifference.”