Struggling councils need more cash to help residents with the cost of living, East Renfrewshire’s leader has said – after “scary” figures revealed almost 1,000 children could be pushed into poverty.
Recent research from the Glasgow City Region’s intelligence hub showed the potential impact of the crisis on East Renfrewshire’s children, and also found 19,000 homes could fall into fuel poverty.
Council leader Owen O’Donnell, Labour, has labelled the figures “scary”. “That was a shocker when we saw that,” he said. “950 kids, that’s huge numbers and a huge increase on where we are for such a small local authority.
“That’s not going to be easy to reverse, that’s going to take years to turn around unfortunately unless suddenly we get a lot more cash.”
He said the UK and Scottish Governments have the “biggest pockets” and East Renfrewshire doesn’t care about the “colour of the money”.
“We just care about what’s happening with the residents,” Cllr O’Donnell added. “Clearly we would like them to do more.”
Cllr O’Donnell was only elected in May but became council leader when Labour formed a minority coalition with independent councillors. Ahead of the election, he said the cost of living crisis had been one of the key issues raised by residents.
“They were already struggling and that was April/May and we know things have only got worse,” he added. “That’s why we put the cost of living crisis really front and centre of our manifesto.”
The council recently announced a £4.4m support package, which includes extending family bridging payments, offering winter clothing grants and increasing money advice services.
“We have been working on it since day one,” he said. “That wasn’t easy. There are competing priorities within this whole area.”
He praised council officials who have been “committed to doing the right thing for the residents” and produced a package that “can have a meaningful impact”.
However, more projects, worth around £1.3m, are being held on a “reserve list” as funding isn’t currently available. East Renfrewshire has £4m remaining in covid reserves but is holding onto the cash to see what impact the virus has this year.
The council leader said: “We might be able to bring that internally through covid reserves but we won’t know that probably until November/December.
“I am certainly hopeful of additional funds being found but we can’t guarantee that. We don’t know how covid is going to come back to us and we’re getting no more covid money from either government.”
He said the council has a “finite budget” and “those budgets have been really screwed down” over the last 10 to 15 years. “We don’t have the ready capacity to help the residents as well as we would like to be able to do.
“I think something like £80m has effectively been taken out of council budgets over the years by not giving inflationary increases. That has a real impact on our ability to react quickly to emerging humanitarian issues.”
The UK Government’s decision to reduce the energy price cap from two years to six months will create uncertainty, Cllr O’Donnell added. “If that certainty has been taken away, it’s not going to help people’s mental health and wellbeing going through this winter when they know it’s going to be the same again next year or worse.
“They do need to give more help to show that they are there, they’re listening and they will help people in need.”
Councils are expecting a funding freeze from the Scottish Government. “Local government has been chronically underfunded, not just us, it’s nationwide,” Cllr O’Donnell said.
“I go to COSLA and group leaders are all screaming about this in terms of the revenue funding restrictions. To have a flat cash [funding settlement] over the next three years when inflation is today over 10% is just nuts, it means significant cuts to services over time.
“Ultimately we can’t control that, the Scottish Government is effectively giving us a real terms cut in funding.”
Some of the council’s support package will be spent on ‘warm spaces’ – venues where residents struggling with soaring energy bills can keep warm and take part in activities.
The council leader said: “Anecdotally, we were already hearing, particularly pensioners, not putting their heating on. We’ve asked all our partner agencies to keep an eye on that sort of stuff.
“The ‘warm spaces’ initiative, this is based on advice, is to let the volunteer groups lead on that in terms of where and when, because it is about dignity and removing stigma for the people who need access to these types of services.”
Funding has also been provided to the council’s money advice team to encourage people to claim all the benefits they are entitled to. “We just need to remove the stigma and encourage people to sign up for the benefits they need,” Cllr O’Donnell said.
There has been a “big increase” in demand for citizens' advice and financial advice services. “It is also from people that we don’t normally see,” the council leader added. “This is people that are just squeezed with their mortgages. They might have a fine house in Newton Mearns but they’re struggling to get by.”
“We are starting to see more people who have never claimed benefits before. In every single ward we’ve got areas of relative deprivation, even near the leafy suburbs, we’ve also got some of the most affluent areas in Scotland as well but that poverty does exist and we can’t be blind to that.”
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