DELEGATES slammed the Tories today for their onslaught on local government funding.

Janine from the hard-hit Birmingham local government branch said: “The Tories have tried to blame funding cuts on equal pay claims and also on unions.”

Birmingham faces £300 million worth of cuts, a 21 per cent rise in council tax over two years and a possible 850 redundancies.

Delegates heard that commissioners have been brought in to run the council on up to £1,200 a day.

Mandy Buckley for the NEC, who also works in Birmingham, made a passionate call for an incoming Labour government “to immediately underwrite the debt incurred by councils and to prioritise fully funding local government.”

Camden housing worker Ben said he and his colleagues “had been denied the resources they needed.

“My overworked colleagues are burning out.”

He added: “We need to raise hell for public services and Labour’s first Budget should restore the funding that has been stolen.”

Rosie MacGregor from the retired members told the conference that older people had been left vulnerable by “the savage spending cuts.”

Local government worker Hugo Pierre said around “£18.5 billion of grant money has been stolen by the Tories,” and as a result, there was now a deep crisis in local government.