In response to the Chancellor’s Autumn budget statement, the Mayor of Newham Rokhsana Fiaz OBE said:
“This is a good start, given the situation the new government inherited and local government isn’t expecting miracles. With news that there will be £1.3bn additional grant funding for local government, including £600m for social care, there is recognition that services which people really need and rely on, and which have been hit so hard by austerity measures, are being recognised and the tide is turning. It’s not enough, but it is a start.
“We welcome the emphasis on, and additional money allocated towards, the existing Affordable Homes programme and other measures designed to help accelerate housing delivery, such as increasing capacity in the planning system. The new five-year social housing rent settlement and the announcement that we will be able to keep 100% of money raised from Right to Buy sales will give us certainty we need to invest in our existing council housing stock and support delivery of new affordable homes.
“We would like to see more specifics on homelessness prevention, in relation to an uplift in the Homelessness Prevention Grant, particularly after the speech given last week by Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner who said central government must ‘share’ the burden of increased homelessness with local councils.
“We understand that Government critically needs to reduce the need for spending on acute services, such as children’s and adult’s social care –and local councils have a key role to play in this through our work with residents in the early intervention and the prevention space.
“Newham already provides this for children through Children’s Centres, Youth Zones, our Newham Family Hubs and Early Help Targeted Family Support Teams. All of which are key to providing a responsive, preventative and early intervention approach that improves outcomes for children, young people and families. Since April 2024, over 1,000 parents/ carers have accessed a service or activity from our two designated Family Hub locations across the borough, a third one opened on 25th October in order to increase our reach to our families. Our prevention work for adults also encompasses a wide range of activities such as cost of living champions, community health champions, smoking cessation and support to reduce substance misuse – all working to reduce the impact on acute NHS services.
“As much as we need additional support, we also need certainty for planning purposes if we are to be able to truly play our part in delivering prevention strategies – and in dealing with the housing crisis that affects all of London and is particularly acute in Newham. This would be helped by a multi -year settlement when the full details of local government funding are expected to be announced in early December.
“We will need to complete a more detailed analysis of the announcements before we can be totally certain of how much of what has been announced and how this will affect us here in Newham.”
