Gove dismisses claims Government to blame for problems at Nottingham City Council

The Levelling Up Secretary, Michael Gove, has rejected claims made by Nottingham City Council, which issued a section 114 notice last month, that it could not balance its books as the result of issues “affecting councils across the country”.

The comments came during a Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee session yesterday (6 December), in which Gove was questioned on local government finances, section 21 evictions and planning reform.

When it issued the report under section 114(3) of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, Nottingham pinpointed the rising costs of its children's and adults' social care services, homelessness and inflation.

In relation to the city council’s financial position, Gove insisted that "systemic problems with leadership and governance" were to blame.

"I don't believe that it is the fault of central government at all," he added.

In response, committee member and MP for Nottingham East, Nadia Whittome said: "Nottingham's overspend was £23m. Conservative governments have cut funding by a hundred million a year every year since 2013."

Gove said: "Well we can always ask the question of how effective has the spending been, how good has leadership been, what is the quality of service delivery in Nottingham?"

The minister’s appearance before the committee came on the day the Local Government Association and the County Councils Network called for more financial support following the Autumn Statement.

The two organisations separately warned that more councils could be set to issue section 114 notices amid a lack of financial support from the central government.

The LGA based its warning on a survey that suggested one in five councils could be forced to issue a section 114 notice in the coming year.

However, Gove told the committee the one in five figure - around 60 councils - was an "overestimate".

Later, he said he did not want to deny that there were real difficulties and challenges in the sector, and accepted that the situation was "tight".

The minister said: "There are many local authorities that have built up reserves over time that mean that they are in a robust financial position. There are other local authorities that are pioneering reform.

"The overall position, I think Oflog would show, is that some people in local government have been crying wolf. But that doesn't detract from the fact, as we have been discussing, that in children's social care, in special educational needs, in adult social care and in homelessness and the pressure from asylum seekers, there are real pressures and I wouldn't want the committee to think I was in denial about those."

The day before the committee session, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities published a policy paper which suggested that approximately £64bn will be made available in 2024-25 to the local government sector, up from £59.5bn.

In a written ministerial statement Gove claimed that the sector was on course to see above-inflation increase in core spending power next year.

The paper, Local government finance policy statement 2024 to 2025, was issued in advance of the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement.

Questions were also asked at the LUHC committee session about the rising costs of children's services. Gove said that DLUHC is looking at how delivery can be improved and raised particular concerns about "profiteering" private equity firms that are running some children's homes.

He described the model as "disturbing", adding that the profits they were able to extract from the public purse in some cases were "excessive". "

In relation to planning reform, the Levelling Up Secretary meanwhile told the committee that he hopes the Government's response to its consultation on changes to the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) will be published next week.

In answering questions on the reforms to the NPPF, Gove said the consultation response will deal with the urban uplift – which requires the 20 largest local authorities to plan to develop more houses – and specify how it is going to be "delivered".

The sector has been keenly anticipating the Government's response to the consultation since the consultation closed in March this year.

Gove also reasserted the Government's target to meet one million new homes built in this Parliament.

Concerning section 21, Gove did not give a precise timeline for axing no-fault evictions but said: "[The Renter's Reform Bill] will be made operational when we're confident that the court system can deal with the abolition and we're confident that that should be in a matter of months."

He added that a 'recent' meeting took place on the matter between the minister responsible for the passage of the bill, Jacob Young, and Mike Freer, a minister at the Ministry of Justice.

Adam Carey