By David Williams
29 July 2010
Town halls across England are beginning to release details of cuts to staffing and services intended to save hundreds of millions of pounds this financial year.
Employment advice and training schemes, free swimming sessions and elderly health programmes have all been nominated for the chop in councils’ spending reduction plans around the country.
These are the first specific details showing exactly how councils will respond to £1.166bn of grant cuts for 2010/11 announced by central government in May.
However, commentators have warned that the cuts are only a taster of the pain that will be inflicted by October’s Spending Review.
In the London Borough of Brent, it was decided this week to implement £6.9m of cuts, including the non-renewal of contracts for the local Citizens Advice Bureau and Connexions service, which works to get young people into jobs.
All funding for a domestic violence advocacy programme will be scrapped, saving £71,000, while a further £287,000 is to be stripped from sports programmes for disabled children and those involved in crime and antisocial behaviour.
There will also be near-total reductions to some parenting support programmes.
Brent council leader Ann John said Whitehall cuts had forced the council to find savings this year. ‘This will have an impact on some of our services, and we regret that… This is a painful process for everyone involved but we have no choice as the funding is no longer available,’ she said.
Trafford Borough Council has agreed a plan to save £3.7m this year after government grant cuts. A total of 81 posts are now at risk – of which 43 are currently vacant. Meanwhile, IT investment for schools and a home for elderly people have been placed under threat.
Councils across the country have scrapped free swimming sessions for children and pensioners, which was centrally funded until this year.
Liverpool City Council agreed last week to scrap a range of jobs schemes – on top of those affected by the axing of the Future Jobs Fund, which helped long-term unemployed young people.
Funding for a Liverpool scheme to encourage business start-ups by young adults is to be cut by £1.3m. Budgets for other programmes combating worklessness are to lose a further £350,000. And a
nurse-led service to maintain the health of older people is to be scrapped altogether.
Anna Turley, acting director of the New Local Government Network, said the Liverpool examples were particularly regrettable as they involved partnership working.
‘People will start to retrench into their funding streams as they watch their pennies, and will be less likely to be collaborative in this climate,’ she told Public Finance.
Turley also predicted increasing tensions between council leaders and chief executives over how to reduce spending. She said council leaders ‘will have an eye on the electorate’, but officers will have doubts over whether the plans are achievable.
Ita O’Donovan, honorary fellow at the University of Birmingham’s Institute for Local Government Studies, pointed out that most of the cuts were to marginal programmes, rather than core services such as elderly care.
She said the authorities planning specific in-year savings for 2010/11 were exceptions, and argued most would be waiting until the Spending Review before developing their long-term cuts programmes.
‘Most of the large authorities will have been thinking about this for 18 months, with an aim to protect frontline services and the most vulnerable.
‘The new cuts would have been an unpleasant surprise, and authorities might have had to front-load things to meet that £1.166bn, but they will still be thinking about the three and four year period. They will have to.’
29 July 2010
Town halls across England are beginning to release details of cuts to staffing and services intended to save hundreds of millions of pounds this financial year.
Employment advice and training schemes, free swimming sessions and elderly health programmes have all been nominated for the chop in councils’ spending reduction plans around the country.
These are the first specific details showing exactly how councils will respond to £1.166bn of grant cuts for 2010/11 announced by central government in May.
However, commentators have warned that the cuts are only a taster of the pain that will be inflicted by October’s Spending Review.
In the London Borough of Brent, it was decided this week to implement £6.9m of cuts, including the non-renewal of contracts for the local Citizens Advice Bureau and Connexions service, which works to get young people into jobs.
All funding for a domestic violence advocacy programme will be scrapped, saving £71,000, while a further £287,000 is to be stripped from sports programmes for disabled children and those involved in crime and antisocial behaviour.
There will also be near-total reductions to some parenting support programmes.
Brent council leader Ann John said Whitehall cuts had forced the council to find savings this year. ‘This will have an impact on some of our services, and we regret that… This is a painful process for everyone involved but we have no choice as the funding is no longer available,’ she said.
Trafford Borough Council has agreed a plan to save £3.7m this year after government grant cuts. A total of 81 posts are now at risk – of which 43 are currently vacant. Meanwhile, IT investment for schools and a home for elderly people have been placed under threat.
Councils across the country have scrapped free swimming sessions for children and pensioners, which was centrally funded until this year.
Liverpool City Council agreed last week to scrap a range of jobs schemes – on top of those affected by the axing of the Future Jobs Fund, which helped long-term unemployed young people.
Funding for a Liverpool scheme to encourage business start-ups by young adults is to be cut by £1.3m. Budgets for other programmes combating worklessness are to lose a further £350,000. And a
nurse-led service to maintain the health of older people is to be scrapped altogether.
Anna Turley, acting director of the New Local Government Network, said the Liverpool examples were particularly regrettable as they involved partnership working.
‘People will start to retrench into their funding streams as they watch their pennies, and will be less likely to be collaborative in this climate,’ she told Public Finance.
Turley also predicted increasing tensions between council leaders and chief executives over how to reduce spending. She said council leaders ‘will have an eye on the electorate’, but officers will have doubts over whether the plans are achievable.
Ita O’Donovan, honorary fellow at the University of Birmingham’s Institute for Local Government Studies, pointed out that most of the cuts were to marginal programmes, rather than core services such as elderly care.
She said the authorities planning specific in-year savings for 2010/11 were exceptions, and argued most would be waiting until the Spending Review before developing their long-term cuts programmes.
‘Most of the large authorities will have been thinking about this for 18 months, with an aim to protect frontline services and the most vulnerable.
‘The new cuts would have been an unpleasant surprise, and authorities might have had to front-load things to meet that £1.166bn, but they will still be thinking about the three and four year period. They will have to.’
