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Local services to be slashed as council budgets are cut by 10%
Pippa Crerar, City Hall Editor13 Dec 2010
Town hall leaders warned of devastating cuts to public services today as they received their budgets from central government.
Councils have been told they must continue to provide “reasonable” frontline services despite the big fall in income.
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles demanded that councils do “more for less” even though budgets will fall by 10 per cent next year alone. He said he expected councils to make more efficiencies, including sharing senior staff and cutting back office operations, to protect frontline services.
But borough leaders across London said the demand was unrealistic. Key services such as street cleaning, leisure centres, children's services and community safety will be hit and up to 30,000 jobs are expected to go.
Jules Pipe, chairman of London Councils, said: “Every council in London is going to find this difficult. We're always trying to make efficiencies and will continue to do so. But the scale of these cuts dwarfs the amount that can be saved in this way.
"No amount of cutting the top management teams' salaries adds up to the £60 to £80 million per borough that we're being expected to save over the next four years.”
Local government expert Tony Travers said: “This is the tightest financial straitjacket the London boroughs will have faced in modern times. But they have no choice. They've got a legal obligation to balance their budget.”
A Camden document warns: “These measures alone will not plug the financial gap and the scale of the challenge will mean that the council, like other councils, will no longer be able to maintain the existing level of services.”
Camden has already identified £30 million in savings, including merging departments with neighbouring councils, and will publish £12.5 million more next month. But it is slashing services and cutting 1,000 jobs to plug the budget gap of up to £100 million.
Roads will be swept less often, charges for swimming pools and sports will increase, community safety will suffer and lunch clubs for the elderly and child playgroups will close.
Camden plans to shave £29 million off housing over three years, £31 million off social care, £36million off children, schools and families and about £25 million from culture and the environment.
Marion Pike, manager of Maiden Lane community centre in King's Cross, said Camden's cutbacks would leave thousands of young and vulnerable people without support on some of the most deprived estates in the borough.
Describing the move as catastrophic, she said it would remove funding from all projects for five to 19-year-olds including play schemes, after-school and holiday clubs and youth clubs. She added it would leave many teenagers with no choice but a life of crime.
Reader views (4)
Some boroughs were playing politics with the level of council tax in the run up to the General Election, making great play of the fact that the tax was frozen.
I've been working on a project with one London borough. I've tried to set up the same meeting three times, but I've failed and had to cancel it each time, due to sickness this, emergency leave that, always from the public sector invitees, never from the private. This is not an isolated instance.
On two occasions the meetings only cancelled after some had turned up, and no substitue available. The local authority was, of course, billed for these wasted hours.
It's all about the waste.
- Johnny Drama, Five Towns, 14/12/2010 16:43
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Lisa
Council tax helps to top up the grant from government to provide the services. Council tax is just a part of a councils funding - cut some of the rest and services need to be cut to balance the books
Just because we pay council taxes doesn't mean that services will continue regardless of anything else
- Avram Grant, London, 14/12/2010 14:29
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Can someone remind me what i pay council tax for? I thought our council tax paid for all this stuff?
- Lisa, London, 14/12/2010 14:11
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It is in keepinG with Local Government layabout employees to squawk.
Watch out for them to cut the front line make US squawk while they hang on to their undererved cushy overpaid jobs in the back offices.
- Anglo, The Heart of England, 13/12/2010 15:54
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