Good council services at risk in West Sussex from Government funding changes

AI image of what a protest could look like

 I was delighted to see the recent findings from the Care Quality Commission (CQC), that West Sussex County’s Adults Services have been officially rated as Good. Care services to adults is the largest service provided by the County Council, affecting literally thousands of lives.

The assessment of the council was earlier this year, and the regulator found strong leadership within adult social care teams and effective support that enables people to live healthier lives. While further improvements to address gaps in service are still needed, the findings are strong evidence that solid progress has been made, and that the council is effective at making a real difference to people’s lives.

This strong progress in Adult Services is the latest in very positive assessments that have been made of different services provided by West Sussex County Council. The second largest service, Children’s Services has also been seeing strong official recognition of improvements. Last month, the inspections of three children’s homes by Ofsted were announced, with two being rated as Good and another one that’s in Crawley, being rated as Outstanding.

Additionally, the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service has seen significant ongoing progress in its last two official inspections. All eleven of the grading judgements from the last inspection last year were either Good or Adequate. A clear positive trend among all the main services that have external inspections has emerged.

But what about the roads you may say? A significant amount of investment has been ploughed in and it has been very noticeable how much road resurfacing and treatments have been taking place in Crawley over the last couple of years. This continues and from later this month, I’m pleased to see that there will be resurfacing on Hawth Avenue and on the Squareabout.

West Sussex County Council is performing well but has service pressures causing financial strain. Services are at risk of being impacted if the Labour Government doesn’t ensure adequate funding to meet those pressures, and if it diverts millions of pounds away from West Sussex to other parts of the country, under it’s so-called ‘fairer funding’ plans.

Rising government borrowing costs will impact us all - now at 5.72%

The cost of UK government borrowing may feel like a boring subject and not relevant to us as individuals, but one would be wrong on both counts. The finances of any government have a very material impact on all our lives, and the costs to borrow for any government that isn’t living within its means, has a major impact on those finances.   

Over the last few months, UK borrowing costs have risen sharply, increasing the cost of financing government debt to more than £100 billion a year - almost 10% of the annual budget. To put this in perspective, our entire annual defence budget is £62 billion.

Many economists are warning the UK faces a unique strain on its financial position, caused by the government’s tax and spend policies, concurrent with projections that our aging society will place greater demand on public spending. We have also (rightly) pledged to increase defence spending due to global threats.

The interest rate on the UK’s 30-year bond rose last week to 5.62%, which is almost a 27-year high. To also put this in perspective, after the mini-budget during Liz Truss’ very short and disastrous time in office, the 30-year bond yield jumped to 5%, before falling back to about 3.5% after many of the mini-budget measures were reversed. Labour were relentless in the general election campaign, in saying that “the Conservatives crashed the economy” meaning the hike in borrowing costs, and yet now after a year of being in office, Labour are manging to make the days of Liz Truss look positively tame.     

This all puts the country in the same position as last year, dreading the upcoming autumn budget. Between 30 to 50 billion pounds needs to be found in either more taxes, higher borrowing, or reduced spending. The Chancellor has been boxed in by back-bench Labour MPs (including Crawley’s) who won’t allow her to slow down the future growth in the burgeoning welfare bill or reduce spending in any meaningful way. Reducing spending is the best way but Labour won’t do it, leading to us being on the road to ruin.

Horse racing at risk from planned tax hike

 

Horse racing - the UK's second largest spectator sport

Our nation has a love of horse racing, which is the UK’s second-largest spectator sport, attended by almost five million people each year. The horse racing industry, which supports 85,000 jobs, is expressing major concerns over the Labour Government’s plans to increase betting tax from 15% to 21% in the autumn budget, an increase of 40% from the current rate.

The argument for increasing this taxation, is to align betting taxes on horse racing with that of slot machines and online casino games which is already 21%. However, this fails to recognise the key differences between these types of gambling. Unlike online casino games, British horseracing makes an enormous contribution to both employment and our society, and has vastly different rates of gambling related harm. Unlike online casino games, betting on horse racing is not available every few seconds, twenty-four hours a day. 

The British Horse Racing Association commissioned economic research, showing that raising the current 15% tax rate paid by bookmakers on racing to the 21% that online games of chance have, could have a devastating impact on the sport with a £330 million revenue hit to the industry in the first five years, putting 2,752 jobs at risk in the first year alone.

Horse racing is worth £4.1 billion to the UK economy, but it’s not just the national economy that risks being impacted, it’s more locally too. Racing at Goodwood brings huge numbers of visitors into West Sussex, which I’ve seen for myself both on trains and on the road. We also have horse racing at Fontwell, Brighton and Plumpton, and not far to the north of us is Epsom racecourse. 

So concerned is the industry that this extra tax will make British horse racing financially unviable, that in an unprecedented move, horse racing will be going on strike on Wednesday 10 September with no race meetings taking place. They are saying that British racing is already in a precarious financial position and this could push it over the edge. They need to be listened to, or we risk losing a valuable social, cultural and economic asset.