We are fast approaching a crisis in public services. Local authority budgets have been cut to the bone in recent years, and this year’s local government finance settlement will do nothing to relieve the pressure on local public services. Wales’s local authorities, on the back of this year’s settlement, are planning massive cuts to local public services and the laying off of teachers, social workers, highway engineers, refuse collectors and a whole raft of council employees. In my region, Swansea council are planning to cut 145 teaching posts and 127 social services posts. Neath Port Talbot council propose to close libraries and end free transport for post-16 students with special educational needs, as well as adults attending respite care, in addition to laying off council staff and abandoning plans for new schools. Bridgend have already closed public toilets and are proposing to cut bus route subsidies, close day centres, care centres and services for the elderly, as well as laying off council staff.

This is being repeated in town and city halls across Wales—services cut to the bone, teachers sacked, day care axed. And yet, people are being asked to pay more—pay more for less, much less. Council tax bills due to drop on doormats across the country in the coming weeks will see rises of around 5 per cent or more—much lower than people’s wages—yet the public will have no choice but to give away more of their hard-earned cash for ever-dwindling services.

So how did we get here? Local government officials blame the Welsh Government, and the Welsh Government blames the UK Government, but in truth they are all to blame. Years of waste and buck-passing have resulted in today’s crisis. Decades of profligate, wasteful spending and an unfair tax system at a UK level have resulted in the need for austerity. Welsh Government’s mismanagement of local government has resulted in duplication and waste; why do we need 22 separate local authorities? We don't. But the Welsh Government, while acknowledging this fact, have failed to do anything about it. As a result, limited resources are spread much more thinly than they need to be, and the way these resources are allocated has been mismanaged by successive Welsh Governments, and this local government finance report is based on a flawed formula, which results in great disparity in funding. Why is spending per head so different across Wales? People in Swansea each get £247 less spent on their services than those in Denbighshire. Why does Bridgend receive over £130 per head less than their neighbouring authorities? And why does Wales’s second city receive nearly £160 per head less than Wales’s third city?

And when it comes to how the moneys are spent, there is massive disparity amongst Wales's councils. Some people get their bins collected every week or two; others can expect a monthly collection. Average council tax bills in Caerphilly are over £700 lower than in Monmouthshire. And why have local authorities been allowed to rack up such high levels of reserves? Some councils are sitting on over £100 million in reserves, while planning to cut services, to sack teachers and highway officers and social workers.

Enough is enough. We need root-and-branch reform of local government and its finances. People's lives are being decimated so that we can play party politics, so that people can remain in office. Well, no more now. It's time to get our house in order, and it's time that Welsh Government lives up to its responsibilities.