At the recent party conferences, the ‘c word' became acceptable in all main political parties, with the Conservatives, in particular, starting to enumerate how they might ‘cut' deficits twice as fast as Labour. The public love the idea of efficiency savings, and think there is lots of waste, but hate anything which reduces frontline services. There will be pain across the public sector, but local government may feel it worse. Unlike the NHS, it is not seen as a service that must be protected by the public. In fact, along with overseas aid, ‘local authorities' are cited as an area which can be a target for cuts. Whatever the Audit Commission says, the public do not think they get value for money from local government. The sector needs to up its game on not just keeping council tax down but at pointing out what good value it does indeed offer. Although one-third of the public are still consistently saying they would rather taxes went up than services were cut – they mean someone else's taxes – there is much less appetite for increased council tax. Asked which types of taxes the public would support increasing – and council tax rises are the least favoured of all So, there are tough choices ahead. ‘Frontline' services are seemingly sacrosanct. Our Public Spending Index shows that elderly care, for example, features along with the NHS and education as a popular candidate for protection. Culture and leisure services may fare less well – our participatory budgeting research shows these are often seen as more ‘peripheral' by residents, but it doesn't mean people won't be angry if their local public library is closed without some careful preparation. In this new world, a key question is the extent to which councils engage their residents in a two-way dialogue about what the cuts and priorities should be. The best are already doing this, and preparing the public for what is to come.
