Council bosses in Newcastle have been forced to deny that they are doing the Government’s “dirty work” by imposing more than £23m of budget cuts.
Politicians were challenged by hecklers at a meeting on Monday night, where plans to slash the city council’s s pending next year were being discussed. The local authority recently unveiled proposals to up council tax by 2.99%, reduce social services budgets by £6.5m, and potentially increase car parking tariffs in the city centre by 20p-per-hour.
Newcastle City Council has already had to make savings totalling £347m since 2010 and says it must now find another £63m in the next three years, £23.2m of which will come in 2023/24. Campaigners who interrupted a cabinet meeting on Monday claimed, as the council launches a seven-week public consultation, that the latest round of cuts was already a “foregone conclusion” and would have a damaging impact on people from deprived communities.
Read More: Council tax and Newcastle parking charges to rise under plans to slash £23m from budget
One of the group of around 10, who identified themselves as residents of Byker, said: “We put it to the council: will they explore any alternatives, will they show any opposition? You can bash the Tories all you want, but you are here to do their dirty work for them by making cuts.”
Coun Nick Kemp, the council’s Labour leader, hit back by insisting it was “fundamentally not true” that he was not against cuts to public services and pledged that the authority would consider any “logical” alternatives put forward. He replied: “I won’t be told we have not opposed government cuts.
"We are not responsible for long-term government funding. We are attempting our very best, working diligently across the council with officers, to protect those most vulnerable in the city and we will continue to do that.”
Coun Paul Frew, Labour’s cabinet member responsible for finance, added that the council was now in “listening mode”, but warned that councillors risked being sent to prison if they did not meet their legal obligation to set a balanced budget. Coun Frew said: “If we did not deliver that then the Conservatives would send their cronies up from London and run this council instead of us. That’s how it works.”
He had earlier told colleagues that the council faced a “challenging” time as it grapples with a series of rising costs from staff pay rises, energy bills, and other inflationary pressures. But the Labour finance chief said the civic centre’s leadership would be freezing charges for local services, paying staff a real living wage, and keeping the price of school meals at current levels.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced during his Autumn Statement last week that councils would be able to increase by 5% annually without a referendum. Coun Frew admitted that the council would have to consider that option, but said it would be “unwelcome” for residents and that the administration wanted to stick with its current 2.99% plans unless “enormous holes” emerge in its financial plans once the full details of government funding for local authorities are confirmed.
Lib Dem councillor Wendy Taylor said she had been “shocked” by the Chancellor’s decision to delay the cap on social care costs. Newcastle City Council’s budget proposals include:
- A council tax increase of 2.99%, including a1% adult social care precept, amounting to a rise of between £36.79 and £110.37 a year depending on households’ council tax banding;
- Cutting £3.24m from adult social care services by “remodelling care assessments but maintaining adequate support for those who need it”;
- Cutting £3.3m from the children, education and skills budget by “safely reducing demand for services”;
- A possible increase of 20p per hour for both on and off-street parking in the city centre;
- Deleting more than 30 vacant civic centre jobs;
- Saving £1.25m from “non-essential expenditure” in areas including overtime pay and taxi fares in children’s social care;
- Ending its Bikeability cycling training in schools.
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