‘This isn’t austerity’: Hackney mayor defends Labour values in ‘ambitious’ budget

Hackney mayor Caroline Woodley. Photograph: Josef Steen / free for use by LDRS partners

Last Friday, the Citizen sat down with Mayor Caroline Woodley following the Labour-run council approving its budget for the coming year.

When we last met, the mayor, who was elected in November 2023, insisted that the borough’s situation was going to get better despite talk of “tough savings”.

Hackney, and indeed the country, were still recovering from years of cuts, she said, and the newly-elected Labour government needed time and space to improve things.

Shortly after we spoke, Woodley and Hackney’s finance chief Robert Chapman were warning that the council needed to find an additional £67m by 2028 to close its budget gap. Following a £25m injection from central government, this has now fallen to £51m.

Our latest conversation coincides with two emerging developments: first, Woodley is eager to announce that Hackney’s external adult social care providers have just been graded ‘Good’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The second, however, was the National Audit Office issuing a reminder of the “systemic weaknesses” of local government finances, owing to the ballooning demand for exorbitant essential services like temporary accommodation and social care.

Has this dampened her optimism?

“I’m still hopeful because we’ve organised things now in Hackney,” she assures. In such a financial context, Woodley sees the delivery of a balanced budget as a “sort of landmark” moment.

“I know we’ve got the funds in place to do the work that we really need to do. I know we’ve got our teams in place to deliver well – with adult social care improving, children’s social care improving, a whole ethos around supporting our most vulnerable.

“There’s a sense that, even if the finances are stretched, we know how to focus, we know how to prioritise, and we know how to do right by our residents.”

The budget shortfall may have shrunk by £16m, but the Town Hall has just approved £25m in cuts to match the government’s cash injection, including slashing up to £1m from its voluntary and community sector grant programme.

This has prompted fresh accusations from the Green and Independent Socialist opposition groups that the council, like Downing Street, is enacting austerity.

It raises a valid question, and one that the Labour oftens seems reluctant to tackle head-on: when are spending cuts “tough decisions” as opposed to austerity?

“If we were looking at austerity, you would not be seeing any growth in terms of our budget. We are investing more in the big three: adult social care, children’s social care, temporary accommodation,” the mayor says.

“We’re also really ambitious in terms of investing in some of our facilities, such as King’s Hall. That’s essentially borrowing more. We’re actually a low-borrowing council, and we’re still able to borrow to invest in some of our infrastructure.”

She also argues it was ideology that governed the austerity years, which contrasts with Labour’s emphasis on “financial responsibility”.

“The Tories were on a mission to shrink the state. The Labour government is talking about growth.”

Her answers might deviate very little from the party line, but the values of a place like Hackney are likely not the top priority for Keir Starmer’s government – as the mayor’s ex-Labour colleagues have been keen to remind her.

Much has been made of the Prime Minister’s electoral strategy: holding together an unlikely coalition that stretches from parts of the Tory shires in the south-east to his party’s former industrial heartlands, where loyal voters had fled due to Labour’s Brexit position and its former leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

To continue doing so, Labour has been talking tough on migration, in a way many have found indistinguishable from the insurgent right-wing Reform party.

In Hackney, all this seems anathema. A month ago, the council came together in a rare show of cross-party unity, passing a motion committing the local authority to lobby the government to end the hostile environment policy towards undocumented migrants brought in by Theresa May in 2012.

Woodley was unequivocal: Hackney will be a borough of sanctuary, she told the chamber.

“We will not listen to Trumpian noise.”

But how does the mayor square this with a government that appears to boast about a headline-grabbing slew of deportations?

“I’m not sure boasting about deporting people is quite how I’d frame it,” she counters.

“There is a really, really serious issue that every party is looking at in terms of people coming here with criminal gangs, in dangerous ways, and actually dying in the process. I think the government is trying to address that.

“Do I have my own opinions on how we can be a borough of sanctuary and we can welcome people? Yes, I do. In Hackney, [we have] 89 different languages spoken, cultures celebrated. It’s an opportunity that I take every time I can to go and visit groups like the Windrush generation, celebrating what they’ve brought to our borough but also recognising the scandal of their denial of citizenship in the past – a scandal that still hasn’t been fully resolved.

“So, I will take my position in Hackney, and what I think is important and how we welcome people. I will also work with the Mayor of London, who launched a fantastic campaign on Valentine’s Day to remind Londoners who also come from all over the world that they are loved and wanted in London.”

The debate over Hackney’s values and their relationship to the current government became testy at last week’s budget meeting, after the Green group’s co-leader, Cllr Zoë Garbett, asked the mayor where her “outrage” was, given that the council was still facing “a huge chasm – and people are desperate for services”.

In response, Mayor Woodley accused her opponent of “jumping on every populist cause in the borough” and heavily implied that the party was “taking advantage of our most vulnerable” in its activism.

Despite a partial climbdown – she apologised to Cllr Garbett following the clash – the mayor stands by the general spirit of her remarks.

“I do get pretty outraged when I see every possible attack on the council supported by opposition councillors, when really a lot of our job is to be a bridge, to explain the reality of the position we’re in, to work with people if we can, to overcome some of the hurdles that we’re in.

“What I would say is that I will work with every councillor, across parties in our council, to help residents where they’ve fallen into the cracks, and that’s to some extent why we exist and why we’re here.

“We are the political administration, the Labour Party, and we want to bring our Labour values to bear – and that’s around fairness and equality.”

As for her alleging opportunism from Cllr Garbett?

“She has at times jumped on various causes that I scratch my head over a little bit.

“There have been moments of working with campaigners, who maybe don’t align with our transport strategy or our hierarchy in terms of supporting low emissions – starting with pedestrians, cyclists, bus users and so on.

“I find it interesting when they take up the cause of motorcyclists and so on. But all hail to her. If she wants to represent everybody, then that’s her right.”

So, what should Hackney’s residents expect from their council as it tries to balance Labour values with creaking finances?

The mayor strikes a futurist tone, staking plenty on the local authority’s ‘digital transformation’, which she tips to drive efficiency and cost-cutting.

In the present, the situation is incredibly trying for some residents. Last month, the Citizen reported that three housing estates in Hoxton had no heating or hot water due to a busted boiler house – an issue which is still ongoing.

Do further cuts not pose a risk to the quality of services that are already struggling to keep up with maintenance?

Put plainly, yes, Woodley says – though she assures this has been acknowledged in this budget’s impact assessment.

The mayor also emphasises that her council will be “really creative” in how it finds ways to improve and grow, even if “there may be some services which we won’t be able to do in the same way”.

“Obviously I hear of pretty desperate cases in my role, and I have a fantastic casework team that tries to address them and bring urgent attention to some of these circumstances.

“We’re on an improvement journey – we’ll prioritise those buildings that are in the worst state of repair. It’s just not something we’ll be able to do very quickly.”