One of the issues I have picked up over the past couple of weeks is the cut in Medway Council’s PSA reward grant. Although the revenue grant reduction was one of the smallest in the Country, the cut in the PSA reward was an unwelcome development. This will indeed have an impact on specific projects, not least because it had already been budgeted for, and I have therefore written to the Secretary of State on behalf of Medway Council. I am scheduled to speak to a Minister about it tomorrow and will update my blog when I have any further information.
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Poor old Medway always got the short straw; and I doubt that current ministers will be aware of just how poorly we have been treated and how thinly-stretched our resources are here.
For example, it isn't widely known that after the already distorted (as Prof Barnett himself has admitted) government funding formula worked out what Medway actually needed in terms of grant to do the job, around £28 million was taken away each year in two "manipulations" as I documented a couple of years ago.
It really is now so tight, with the latest announcements, that something serious needs to be done to redress the balance between Local Authorities, rather than in effect perpetuating Labour's bias toward their own favoured LAs.
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