| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Cllr Ruth Cadbury at today's read-in | |
| Posted by: | Ed Mayne | |
| Date/Time: | 10/02/11 14:36:00 |
| Dawn, The £18m savings reflects the amount that has already been cut from the Council's central government funding. In order to fill this gap £18m savings have to be found in the forthcoming budget and the one after. The Council has to pass a legal budget. If the Council approves an illegal budget (or doesn't set one at all) Councillors forfeit their ability to set it. In order for the budget to be legal £18m savings have to be found because of the loss of central government funding. Finding the extra £3m should be straightforward. The consultation outlined potential savings in excess of £18m. Some of these have been removed in response to the results of the public consultation, e.g. libraries and parts of the savings from community halls and the Youth Service. In other cases it was found that the saving could not definitely be achieved in time for this budget, so some proposals were removed because of caution. However because in excess of £18m was identified, finding £3m from the proposals that were not controversial will be possible. Estimates on the additional grants we will lose are still being calculated. So I cannot give any accurate figures on this as yet. And it may well be the case that some grants that are removed are replaced by others. But there will almost certainly be a net loss as all central government departments are being forced to make cuts. It therefore figures that their grants to local government will be cut too. These additional grants are not secret. They are outlined in the Council's accounts and financial statements. See the Finance page of the Council website. But they do not appear in the budget consultation or the figures presented to the Executive on Tuesday because the Council has no power over them. For the amount spent on the Leisure Centre I suggest you look at the information on the Finance page of the Council website. As I mentioned in my last post, an SRA is a Special Responsibility Allowance. It is an allowance Councillors receive for doing extra duties. Information about Council committees and SRAs are on the Council website. Most committees were abolished when the Council abandoned the committee system and replaced it with the current "Leader and cabinet" system as per new Local Government laws approved by Parliament. However some remain, some because they are statutory. Licensing Committee is statutory. As you will see from Tuesday night's Executive Agenda, line COR5 on p95 of the public reports pack to be exact, the Labour administration aims to achieve savings by reducing the number of committees and making changes to committee arrangements. |