New Cabinet Office Minister Says There Is "Massive Waste" In Local Council Funding

New Cabinet Office minister Georgia Gould has said having local councils bid against each other has led to “massive waste” and that the Labour government would bring a “new era of partnership” between local, central and regional government.

Just over a week ago, Gould was elected as MP for Queen's Park and Maida Vale for the first time. Only a few days later, she was appointed Parliamentary Secretary in the Cabinet Office. At the time of speaking to PoliticsHome, it is still so early in her ministerial career that she did not yet know what her specific brief would be.

She is one of five newly-elected Labour MPs to be given ministerial jobs by Prime Minister Keir Starmer following his General Election victory.

“We're still kind of working out exactly how we're going to divide things up between us, but the thing that's absolutely clear is the Cabinet Office is going to be there to help drive through the missions for our government,” Gould said, describing the department as the “engine room” for making Labour’s six steps and five missions for government happen.

Gould, at the age of 38, has already been a Labour councillor for 14 years and the leader of Camden Council in London since 2017 – which, she said, has taught her an “enormous amount” about the running of local and national government.

A cross-party committee of MPs warned earlier this year that the financial crisis facing England's councils is "out of control" and that the Government must plug a £4bn funding gap to avoid a "severe impact" on services. At the start of 2024, nearly one in five council leaders in England said they were likely to declare bankruptcy in the next 15 months. Many of the councils that have already gone bankrupt have been Labour-run