Milton wins with two-thirds of voteBy Nick Golding, acting news editorThe Local Government Association's new chairman has predicted councils' worsening financial crisis could finally force ministers to reform local taxation.Sir Simon Milton, Westminster City Council leader, called for sweeping new financial powers for councils after being convincingly elected LGA chairman, winning two-thirds of the vote in a ballot of senior Conservative councillors.He got 1,978 votes compared to Tandridge DC leader Gordon Keymer's 550 and Hampshire CC leader Ken Thornber's 458, in a contest weighted according to the size of councils.Sir Simon succeeds Lord Bruce-Lockhart. With the Conservatives being the LGA's largest party, they effectively appoint the chairman.In an LGC interview, he named devolution as his first priority, calling for local government to be able to raise more of its expenditure locally. He said Labour and the Conservatives had 'spooked' each other out of considering radical change and that Sir Michael Lyons' review of council funding had 'shut down lots of avenues' for potential solutions.Sir Simon warned the rising costs of waste disposal and caring for an ageing population could not be sustained by council tax increases, within a five percent cap.'The risk is that the funding pressures coming out of comprehensive spending review could break the system,' he said. He also warned there would have to be radical cuts in local authority expenditure if the costs are passed on to local government, without funding from central government. Referring to the inevitable cuts in discretionary services which would ensue, affecting the most vulnerable worst, Sir Simon added: 'When the shoe starts to really pinch, that's when people have to return to the subject of local government finance.'Richard Kemp, LGA Liberal Democrat group leader, said he believed Sir Simon would not operate in a party partisan way in his dealings with ministers.
