Emergency funding ‘needed to save essential services’
Public service union UNISON has made a plea for £10 billion of funding for local councils in order to avoid “catastrophic cuts”.
The union says that it has analysed the impact of a £10 billion funding gap for 2020/21, which amounts to a 21% reduction in spending compared to the previous financial year (2019/20).
If cuts were to be applied equally across all services, it says, £1.9 billion would be cut from children’s social care spending, £1.1 billion from environmental services and £3.5 billion from adult social care.
UNISON estimates that a reduction on that scale could lead to the loss of 51,000 children’s social workers, 141,000 adult care workers, and almost 46,000 refuse collectors.
UNISON has launched a petition (link below for link) calling on the government to find emergency funding to cover the shortfall.