West Sussex County Council Leader Louise Goldsmith has written to the Secretary of State Eric Pickles urging him to rethink the scrapping of a fund that provides emergency support to people facing short-term crises.
This follows the unanimous backing by all Councillors of a Notice of Motion during last week’s Full Council that expressed dismay at the Government’s decision to withdraw funding from the scheme and recognised the value of the work carried out by the West Sussex Local Assistance Network.
During the debate Louise described the Network as representing “cracking good value for money” and thanked members for their continued support of her lobbying of the Government and MPs.
In the letter, Louise invites Mr Pickles to West Sussex to see how well West Sussex has developed the Network and describes the thinking behind the West Sussex scheme.
She says: “It is a fine example of cost-effective preventative early intervention very much in line with the County Council’s belief and policy to help people to help themselves and we are happy for our process to be used to help other authorities.”
Louise adds that she is concerned that without the Network people who have nowhere else to go will be forced towards loan sharks who will charge extortionate rates of interest, which could lead to short-term problems escalating to long term troubles.
As such, she says: “When the fund is withdrawn we are seriously considering that in West Sussex we will have to continue funding our Local Assistance Network.
For us this represents an unfunded new burden of around £1.24m a year, which means we will have some unpalatable choices ahead of us in deciding where in our budget the £1.24m sum will come from in future years.
“We are in West Sussex continually finding more savings and cutting our coat according to our cloth, but finding the additional £1.24 million at a time when resources are stretched within local authorities will be an additional pressure.”
Finally, she reminds Mr Pickles of the Government’s pledge that it set out during its call for evidence: “We recognise that the design, set up and delivery of the new assistance will place an additional burden on local authorities and we are committed to ensuring that this is funded in full by central government.”