Three-year-old Eddie laughs as he whizzes down a slide. His mother Jodie Poole is relieved to see him smiling.
A few weeks ago, he developed a painful abscess in his mouth. After being told there’d be up to a year’s wait for the NHS to remove the affected tooth, Jodie paid around £250 for it to be done privately.
An example, she says, of how public services are letting down families like hers.
“I feel like I’m paying twice,” she says. “I’m paying through my taxes, the money that I should be paying, and then I’m paying extra money that looks quite expensive because I can’t get the things that we need that we should do for our taxes.”
As Chancellor Rachel Reeves decides how much to fund each of the public services that people across the country rely on for their everyday needs, it’s people like Jodie who’ll need persuading that they’re getting a return for their taxes.
There’ll be winners and losers, with health and defence set to be prioritised.
Jodie works as a childminder and runs a mother and toddler group in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, which is where we met her for a chat.
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She voted for Labour at the last general election but has been disappointed so far.
“I don’t think Britain’s working well for anyone right now,” is her verdict on the state of public services.
‘I don’t think they have a clue’
Running around with the younger children is seven-year-old LJ. It’s the middle of the school day, but her mother Rachel Lawrence, 46, explains she no longer attends school due to concerns her additional needs weren’t being met.
She believes funding for education needs to be prioritised.
“My daughter’s home educated because they can’t keep up with the SEN (special educational needs) needs of children,” she says.
Rachel used to work in a care home but had to give up due to childcare demands. She now works three jobs to pay the bills.
She can’t remember exactly how long LJ has been on a waiting list for an autism assessment but says it’s been “years”.
As well as schools, she wants her taxes to be spend on extra funding for the NHS and more money for the police.
“I think they seem to be very underfunded as well,” she says. “Here, there’s thefts all the time.”
She believes government ministers are out of touch with what life is really like.
“I don’t think they have a clue,” she says. “They’re too high up to kind of see what’s happening to what I would call us little people down here”.
Hard to book appointments with GP
In a nearby cafe, Eddie Bromley, 72, is enjoying a morning coffee. Asked if he’s happy with local services, he shakes his head.
“You can’t ring your doctor up now and say, ‘Can I book an appointment?'” he says.
He dislikes being told to book online. “For a lot of people, you know, that’s difficult,” he says.
Local pharmacist, Kishore Banda says inability to book GP appointments when they’re needed is the biggest complaint he hears from customers.
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He says people then seek help at A&E departments instead. “At the end of the day it will cost more for the NHS,” he says.
But among the steady stream of people coming in to collect prescriptions we found people supportive of at least some of what they’re hearing from the government.
Whitney stops to chat briefly. “I’m quite alright with everything at the moment, obviously that’s not the same for everyone,” she says.
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Michael Lamb, who is in his 80s, thinks prioritising defence spending is key. “I can see a third world war coming,” he says, genuinely concerned.
The chancellor has talked about tough choices when it comes to deciding how to allocate spending. It’s clear, here in Peterborough, that it will be impossible to please everyone.
