Call for wealth tax and public service investment dominates local government funding debate

Delegates at UNISON's local government conference passed several motions on wealth redistribution, investment in public services and a renewed offensive against austerity. 

On the first day of the conference, hosted in Brighton, delegates warned of the growing gap between extreme wealth and the realities facing council workers and service users.

Opening the debate, one delegate highlighted the staggering concentration of wealth at the top of society, referencing new reports that Elon Musk has become the world's first trillionaire.

"A trillion sounded like a made-up number," she said. "But it turns out it's very real – and it has twelve zeros at the end of it."

"There is absolutely no way that Elon Musk works as hard as a care worker or a teaching assistant to accrue that amount of money," she said. "Yet we continue to see a widening gap between the richest in society and the poorest, and that inequality plays out directly in cuts to our services."

Drawing on experiences in Leicester, another speaker pointed to significant health inequalities across the city and warned that preventative services, which could help narrow those gaps, are increasingly being reduced or cut entirely because of funding pressures.

"I frequently find that people decline the support they genuinely need because the contribution they are told they must pay is simply unaffordable," she said. "That is ridiculous. Social care should be free at the point of access for those who need it."

Delegates heard concerns that continuing pressure on local authority budgets risks opening the door to greater private sector involvement in public services. 

The debate centred on the scale of the financial crisis facing councils, which have a funding gap of £4.1 billion this year, rising to £7.4 billion next year.

"Yet there is still no wealth tax. Income from capital continues to be taxed more favourably than income from work. Pay is eroded, benefits are cut, services are decimated, and meanwhile migrants and trans people are demonised," one delegate said.

The debate concluded with a call for a major programme of investment in public services, restoration of local government pays, and a more ambitious industrial strategy from the union.

"UNISON needs to lead an offensive – not just to stop the next cuts, but to reverse the last ones, restore jobs and rebuild public services."

The conference also heard calls for urgent action to tackle the growing SEND funding crisis and the mounting high needs deficits facing councils across the country. Speaking in support of the motion, one delegate argued that years of underfunding had left schools, local authorities and families struggling to secure the support that children need.

"We should fight for the return of publicly owned and funded schools," they told conference. "The health, social care and education system should be taken back under the democratic control of education workers, student organisations and local working-class communities."

"We need the resources to ensure all children's needs are met, allowing them to reach their full potential."

Calling for greater coordination across the education sector, they continued: "We need all school trade unions to fight for the services we need and the resources to properly fund them. We need all our unions to lead in forming a government that bases its policies on the needs of our children, not the greed of capitalist profiteers."

The speaker concluded by arguing that the funding required already exists but is being distributed unfairly. "The money is there, but not in our hands," they said, before calling for the trade union movement to consider national strike action to secure the investment needed in SEND provision and wider children's services.