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Council £85m Cuts Proposals

I was at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday where the Labour council outlined the need for budget savings totaling £85m over 4 years and placed the blame squarely on the Coalition Government.  It is interesting that this figure has changed at least three times in as many weeks. The figure is also not strictly true.  Whilst some of our fiscal problems will inevitably end up in local authority finances - the figures being quoted are misleading and open to challenge. Conservative opposition calculations show that of the £85m now being suggested as a saving target around 2/3rd of all the "cuts" can't be explained by changes in Government Formula Grant. For example spending £3.5m bringing council house management back into the council - money that could have kept libraries open and park ranger services intact - is a council decision.Our analysis also show that the councils' "30% budget cuts" story is based on figures that would require an accountant 20 minutes to explain. The schools budget is the same this year as last year. The councils net spending on services is up year on year!These are challenging times for everybody, but it would help if we could have a real debate about the real extent of the councils financial position rather than the current narrative which is designed to provide cover for changes to services.I apologise for the long post. I hope Acton residents will join in the debate. It is an important debate when services are at risk.Cllr Mark ReenShadow Cabinet Member for FinanceLondon Borough of Ealing

Mark Reen ● 5579d4 Comments

Blimey a Tory politician blaming Labour for the financial messwhatever next?

Colin Carroll ● 5579d

Cllr ReenIs perhaps some of this scaremongering designed to persuade the Coalition to give Ealing a better grant?Do you have legal powers to see the justification for taking the housing management in house. If you saw it then would there be any way that the decision process could be challeneged in Court?Or does it all boil down simply to political choices?"The councils net spending on services is up year on year".If services have already been cut back, then what does this comment, said in isolation, mean please?

George Knox ● 5579d

George,Thanks for the post.  I would say no. The Councils grant for the next two years at least is set.  The point of the article was to simply point out that the Labour council are making significant changes to services that affect residents and are dressing many of these up as entirely driven by the difficult financial environment - when in fact the policy and funding decisions are almost entirely now at the discretion of the council - the government have handed the council enormous extra powers to make decisions about how money is allocated locally. I would add the fact that all council communication recently has suggested falling council expenditure - 30% is the figure quoted regularly. The situation is that to get to the 30% figure that the Labour council would like you to believe, you have use a very narrow view of the councils budget. An accountants view in fact; one which bears only a partial relation to the amount of money actually spent on services by the council. The narrowness of this accountants view is in my opinion highlighted that the fact that according to the published budget book (which you would have received with your council tax bill) the councils expenditure this year is higher than last, not lower.I do not deny the council is under financial pressure but the budget cut from the government is nowhere near the 30% of the councils expenditure as is claimed.  This figure is being used to justify service changes (for example library closures) to residents rather than a necessary restructuring of the councils operations. The council is still spending a five figure sum from council tax to fund trade union activity at the council. Thanks for the interest.Cllr Mark Reen

Mark Reen ● 5577d

Mark, Where do you get the figure of £3.5 mil to bring housing management in-house from? I understood this was a cost saving measure that would save between £1.75 and £2 mil per annum, mostly through eliminating duplication of support functions like HR,IT,finance etc. Makes a lot of sense to me. Your "cost" figure looks rather dubious. Where do you get it from?

Paul Conlan ● 5575d