| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Cllr Ruth Cadbury at today's read-in | |
| Posted by: | Ed Mayne | |
| Date/Time: | 08/02/11 22:11:00 |
| Dawn To clarify, Hounslow Council needs to save £60m over 4 years. The central government share of the Council's funding for the next budget has already been cut, which means the savings have to be front loaded. The Council will therefore cut £18m from the forthcoming budget, £18m the year after, £12m the year after that and £12m the year after that - unless of course the coalition government changes their mind on local government funding which seems unlikely. This £60m does not include many of the central government grants which fund some Council services. Decisions on many of these have not been made yet. But many will undoubtedly disappear, some already have, which means the Council will actually have to make more than £60m worth of cuts, but you won't see all of these in the Council's budget. Right now Council staff are trying to find every funding option they can to save vital services. I wasn't a Councillor when the decision to refurbish Brentford Fountain Leisure Centre was made so I do not know the details about it. This decision was made when the Conservative-Isleworth Community Group coalition ran Hounslow Council between 2006 and 2010. Labour took over after the local elections last year, when I was elected. Cllr Mark Bowen, who posted earlier in this thread, was Deputy Leader of the Council during this coalition so he may be able to answer your question. Phil Andrews and Paul Fisher, who have also posted, served in this administration at different times so they may be able to shed some light on this too. Though it must be pointed out that after CIP was ended, Council leisure centres were contracted out to Fusion. So Fusion must have supported this refurbishment in some form. You're welcome to email me about this (ed.mayne@hounslow.gov.uk), and I'll look into it for you if you prefer. Regarding the Council Tax question, here is a quote from the Department for Communities and Local Government website: "The Treasury has set aside an extra £650 million to help local authorities in England freeze their council tax next year...The new grant scheme will be open to all billing and major precepting authorities, including police and fire authorities, which decide to freeze or reduce their council tax next year. If they do, they will receive additional funding in 2011-12, equivalent to raising their 2010-11 council tax by 2.5 per cent. The Spending Review also commits to providing authorities with additional funding in future years to "lock in" the benefits of the one year freeze and help ensure council taxpayers will not face subsequent excessive increases." So a "small" increase in Hounslow Council tax would not benefit anybody. Just one quick point to address remarks about the allowance received by the Chair of the Licensing Committee. The 15 Councillors who make up this committee used to pocket £500 per year each just for sitting on the committee. That equals £7500 in total. This arrangement has now been ended and instead the Chair receives a £6400 Special Responsibility Allowance (SRA) each year, the same as the other major committee chairs. So this is actually a small saving for the Council. And for the record, as an Executive Member, I have cut my allowances overall by 25%, as have all other Councillors who receive SRAs. Councillors who do not receive SRAs have all cut their "basic" allowance by 5%. In response to Jim's point earlier, the Council has set up a Savings and Transformation team which we hope will deliver many of the savings in years to come. However I must stress, it has been hard enough finding £18m of savings for the forthcoming budget. Tonight, at our Executive Meeting, we agreed on just over £15m of cuts, so a further £3m approx will need to be found in time for the budget. And then next year we have to find £18m again!! This is just the beginning of a very painful journey. |