Ministers will gain new powers to intervene if local authorities do not act quickly enough against coronavirus outbreaks, Boris Johnson has said.

In a series of tweets, Johnson announced ministers would be able to close “whole sectors or types of premises” in a given area, impose localised stay-at-home orders, prevent people entering or leaving certain areas, limit the maximum number of people at a gathering and reduce transport in local areas. This would be “guided by evidence”, he said.

Johnson added the details would be outlined in draft regulations published next week.

From Saturday, local councils have gained greater powers to help avert local lockdowns, including the ability to shut down shops, events and close public outdoor spaces.

Blackpool council has said it will invest an extra £14m in its beleaguered children’s services by axing up to 75 jobs and raising council taxes.

Since 2012, the council has received several “inadequate” ratings from Ofsted. The most recent inspection raised concerns vulnerable children were being left at risk of “significant harm” including from sexual exploitation and going missing.

Figures show the cost of all social care in Blackpool accounts for more than three-quarters of local authority spending. Budget proposals for the forthcoming financial year show cuts of £5m, which mean savings of £19.6m must be found across all services when the funding for children’s services is factored in.

The council has announced that up to 75 jobs will be lost, while council tax is expected to rise by the maximum 4% allowed by the government.

In January last year, children’s social care in the Lancashire resort was deemed inadequate because of “key weaknesses” in support services. The inspection report also found that some children were left to “live in situations of chronic neglect for long periods of time”.

Council spending on local services has fallen by more than a fifth since 2010, according to a report from Britain’s leading independent economics thinktank.

In a reflection of the austerity drive imposed on local authorities by Conservative-led governments during the past decade, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said spending on services in England had fallen by 21% between 2009-10 and 2017-18.

In a sign of the increasing difficulties facing local authorities across the country, the leading tax and spending thinktank also said the funds available to councils would become increasingly inadequate in the 2020s, rendering the current financing system for the country’s local authorities through council tax and business rates unsustainable.

David Phillips, an associate director at the IFS, said: “Current plans for councils to rely on council tax and business rates for the vast bulk of their funding don’t look compatible with our expectations of what councils should provide.”

The shifting demands of an ageing population mean the current 3% cap on annual council tax rises would mean adult social care would require 60% of local tax revenues within 15 years, up from 38% now, according to the report

In Nico’s case, East Sussex county council now covers only half of the cost of the support he needs; his school has to pay for the remainder or disrupt his education. “Rather than funding his care according to his education, health and care plan, the local authority is funding his care according to their own matrix, saying that’s the maximum funding you can get for that type of disability,” said Heugh.

She is a member of SEND Action, a national network of families committed to upholding their legal rights. “I am able to fight for my son but there are many parents who are not able to. Their children are not receiving the correct level of provision at school, or are being excluded altogether and losing their education. It’s frustrating, because children with SEND are capable of achieving so much with the right kind of support. I know my son is.”

In December the education watchdog Ofsted said education provision for children with SEND was “disjointed” and “inconsistent”, and that in 2018 more than 2,000 of the most needy pupils missed out on the support to which they were entitled – a number that has tripled since 2010.

The school leaders’ union NAHT has reported that only 2% of headteachers feel they receive sufficient funding for pupils with SEND.

Irwin Mitchell will argue that the government has been acting unlawfully since the 2014 Children and Families Act extended special education needs provision from 18 to 25 years, increasing the numbers entitled to funding. “We couldn’t find any evidence that the funding had increased,” said solicitor Anne-Marie Irwin. “Public bodies are required to act in a rational manner. It’s irrational to include in the act a whole raft of new [people] who need support, and not allocate money to fund that.”

A report last December by the Local Government Association showed that demand for services for children and young people with SEND rose by 35% between 2014 and 2018, and that this academic year, 93 local authorities expect their spending on children with high needs will be underfunded to the tune of £287m. Increased post-16 responsibility was the single most commonly cited factor contributing to the growth in high needs spending by local authorities.

The number of NHS and local government bodies with significant financial weaknesses in their ability to give value for money is unacceptably high and increasing, according to Whitehall’s spending watchdog.

The National Audit Office has examined the financial statements from nearly 937 local health authorities, councils, police and local fire bodies which are responsible for about £154bn of net revenue spending every year.

Auditors conclude in a report published on Wednesday that the number of local bodies with significant weaknesses increased from 170 (18%) in 2015-16 to 208 (22%) in 2017-18.

It follows the publication of an International Monetary Fund report in October which found that the UK’s public finances were among the weakest in the world after the 2008 financial crash.

Sir Amyas Morse, the head of the NAO, said he was shocked by the persistent high level of qualified audit reports at local public bodies.

“A qualification is a judgment that something is seriously wrong, but despite these continued warnings, the number of bodies receiving qualifications is trending upwards,” he said.

“Let us hear no cries of: ‘Where were the auditors?’ when things go wrong. The answer will be: ‘They did the job, but you weren’t listening.’

“This is not good enough. Local bodies need to address their weaknesses, and departments across government should ensure they are challenging local bodies to demonstrate how they are responding.”

Now I’m not against taking the rap when I do something wrong, but when I worked in Local Government I always felt slightly ashamed of those Council’s that have
crossed the line of, whilst not deliberately issuing tickets for revenue reasons, certainly coming to rely significantly on car park fines and even car park income more generally. It seemed to me somehow demeaning that, something as important as a local authority, was forced to rely on these things as an income strategy.

The hard faced element of my character reflects that in view of the severe limits placed on the real discretion of authorities to raise their own revenues and take a whole number of service issues “by the horns” it is not surprising that it has come to this in a number of places.

It does worry me though, when authorities are constantly seen as enforcers and nit pickers, rather than acknowledged for the good and visionary things they do in many places – often because of restrictions to their discretion, on a shoestring.