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Posted on

29 Dec 2015

Posted under

Asset sweating, Austerity cuts, Transparency

When privatisation of council services goes wrong

“Since the 1st December, BT Cornwall (BTC) and Cornwall Council have been locked in a legal battle in the High Court over the BT contract. The reason is because the Council believes it has the right to terminate the agreement for breaches in that contract by BTC. Of course, BTC disagrees with this.

To recap, BTC filed an application with the High Court in order to seek an injunction on 12 August 2015, preventing the Council from terminating the agreement. This resulted in a hearing which took place on 12 August 2015 in the High Court (Commercial Courts). The outcome was that the Court agreed to the request to have an expedited trial set for December.

As for the reasons why, please read the previous blog post HERE.

Anyone who has been reading this blog, will know I have written a lot (all blog posts HERE) about this subject. Reading back through them reminds me how the Council was in open warfare against the Cabinet. There were petitions; the Portfolio Holder for Finance, Jim Currie resigning and the no-confidence motion which saw the disposing of the Leader of Cornwall Council. It was a bloody and costly war that saw the BT-light deal being signed on the 27th March 2012. I finished off that post with the line of: ‘Lets hope the Council does not regret this day’.

Today, the Judge gave his judgement after hearing the evidence from both sides. I am very pleased the judgement was in favour of the Council. This judgment which confirms our argument that BT Cornwall had been in material breach of the contract due to their failure to carry out services to the required contractual standards and, therefore, that the Council was justified in reaching the decision to terminate the contract.

The ruling also means that the Council will be seeking payment of its costs from BT Cornwall in connection with this legal action. From this, the Council intends to hold discussions with BT Cornwall to agree the level of damages the Council will receive. This could run into the millions.

I would also like to say well done to the Council’s legal team who took on the might of an international corporation – and won.

Has the Council regretted that day? I have thought about this and it would be easy to say ‘I told you so’ but that would serve no purpose. However, it is clear the principle of outsourcing great swathes of public sector to commercial companies who have little, if any, understanding of the public sector is flawed.

I feel the reason why so many council’s took the outsourcing route is because they thought it was an easy way of saving money. The commercial companies were quick to whisper sweet nothings into any local government ear promising to solve their funding problems. The truth be told, local governments, are better at knowing how to save money. They do this without thinking of how it will affect the profit margin. Local government do not think about profit margins, but how changes will affect the service user.

Following this legal ruling the Council intends to provide notice of termination of the contract before Christmas, but there will be no immediate change in the arrangements as termination will not take effect until January. The process of transferring staff and services from BT Cornwall to the Council and our Public Sector Partners will begin in January and will be completed as quickly and smoothly as possible. This will involve approximately 250 members of staff.

The following services will transfer back to the authority: HR Transactional Services including Payroll, HR Employment Support, First Point Helpdesk, Financial Processing, ICT, Despatch, Printing and Telecare. My thoughts are with the staff who will yet again be affected with this judgement.

I will now wait till the judgement is released to give a further viewpoint……”

http://www.cllrandrewwallis.co.uk/bt-cornwall-verses-cornwall-council-judgement-goes-in-favour-of-the-council/

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

29 Dec 2015

Posted under

Austerity cuts

A young person’s thoughts on austerity

Bradley Allsop, student member, Green Party in today’s Huffington Post online:

“David Cameron came under fire recently for what was perhaps the second most bizarre story to emerge about him this year (no prizes for guessing the first), when he seemingly chided his own council for following his own policies to their logical conclusion. Decrying the loss of ‘frontline services’ by his own local Oxfordshire council, he suggested that they instead attempt to find more ‘back-office savings’, even offering to set up a meeting with Downing Street advisors to help them do so. Commentators make much of the ridiculousness of Jeremy Corbyn disagreeing with his own front bench, but it’s something else when you speak out against your own policies. Never has there been a clearer example of a politician aloof to the impacts of his own decisions. Mr Cameron simply fails to understand the destruction austerity is reaping across the country he is meant to serve- his economic approach is causing irreversible damage to local communities and the future of British society.

Many services are simply disappearing entirely, and those that are not are either being hoisted upon volunteers (commenable in terms of giving local communities more control over their services, but at times woefully unable to provide the same level of skill and commitment as paid, trained staff) or put into the hands of private companies where profit, not provision, is the priority.

Already I see austerity eroding away many things I have held dear in my life, be it threatening the provision of local libraries that have provided such a nurturing of my own creativity and provide so much more to so many others, or the loss of staff and courses in my university due to reduced government funding. Other areas are suffering too; parks and other recreational facilities that are crucial for both physical and mental wellbeing, youth centres that give young people purpose, direction and community and the social services that protect vulnerable communities. In a damning report by the poverty-campaign charity, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, cuts to local services have been shown to be exacerbating and entrenching inequality, disproportionately hitting the most deprived areas where spending is, ironically, needed most. These cuts are setting in motion a damaging process of widening class divisions with impacts that will ripple throughout many generations.”

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

26 Dec 2015

Posted under

Austerity cuts, East Devon economy, EDDC, Tourism

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East Devon economy booming? Not according to Cabinet agenda data

And just one more from the Cabinet agenda papers for 6 January 2016:

“Local Economic Challenges are identified in the District Profile for East Devon (Grant Thornton, Feb 2015). They include:

The average gross weekly earnings in East Devon are low at £409 compared with £503 nationally

The knowledge economy in East Devon accounted for just 13.5% of total employment in 2013, compared with 18.13% for the SW and 21.75% nationally

The self employment rate in East Devon is high and stable by national standards but new business formation rate is very low, ranking in the bottom 20%.

A key role for the Economic Development team is to create the conditions for more businesses to develop across East Devon and to retain the workforce in the District (Draft Council Plan, 2015). The benefit will be more jobs, money in circulation and business rates income to the Council. The towns to the east of the District have seen less growth than the west end and this presents an opportunity to the Council to assist in delivering this growth.

A key driver behind our regeneration interventions is the improvement of the visitor economy in visibility and mix of facilities and infrastructure. East Devon has much to offer tourists with its world heritage status coastline, beaches, AONBs, attractive towns and villages and numerous attractions that bring people to the district. However, tourism numbers have been in decline in recent years as evidenced in the South West Regional Tourist Board data (2011). This indicated a fall in visitors to East Devon from 800,000 visitor trips per annum in 2005 to 472,000 visitor trips in 2011. The income from overnight stays also fell from 3.7m to 1.8m in the same period.

Click to access combined-final-cabinet-agenda-060116.pdf

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

21 Dec 2015

Posted under

Austerity cuts

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1 Comment

Happy Christmas tax credit claimants

credit: Steve Bell, Guardian online today

Zero- hours contract where your employer doesn’t employ you for more than 16 hours a week, so you can’t take another job to make up the hours? Tough – have you and the kids eat less or turn off the heating, perhaps? Your choice.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

21 Dec 2015

Posted under

Austerity cuts

Comments

3 Comments

EDDC doesn’t just charge vulnerable elderly people for falls! Oh, no …

Should you (unwisely) think that EDDC has not stooped so low as to charge £26 to pick up elderly people – think again – it has MANY more charges than that! Here is a list of the EXTRA charges that EDDC plans to charge its elderly, vulnerable people in private housing from April 2016 (there is no similar list in this document for what it currently charges or will charge its own sheltered housing residents).

The table in the link below compares EDDC’s charges to those of Exeter City Council and Torbay Council, and, by and large, the EDDC charges are mostly slightly lower than those of both councils. However, all the councils make extra charges of some kind. Do note that, in the case of EDDC, it appears that there is no personal visit involved in all these services:

“Activate the alarm in an emergency and one of our operators will respond within 60 seconds. They will assess the situation and call for help from a contact or emergency service when necessary.”

http://eastdevon.gov.uk/housing/housing-support-for-elderly-disabled-and-vulnerable-residents/home-safeguard-alarm-services/how-the-home-safeguard-system-works/

Here are the extra charges from April 2016:

Additional Pendant £1.00/week
Smoke alarm £0.50/week
Heat detector £0.50/week
Extreme temperature £0.50/week
Carbon monoxide £1.00/week
Flood detector £1.00/week
Falls detector £1.00/week
Pill dispenser £1.50/week

Click to access the-knowledge-18-december-2015-issue-32.pdf

On a different site, it appears that, for the basic service (and what would that be!) EDDC charges “less than £5 per week” from which we can gather that vulnerable people pay around £250 per year for the basic service.

If one adds ALL the extra services to the basic amount, vulnerable people will be paying an extra £338 – a total cost of around £558 per year if all services are taken.

Careline itself will provide a basic service for £125 per year (current special offer) or a basic plus falls service for £195 per year.

https://www.careline.co.uk/order-careline/

Just one small query: modern alarms mostly combine smoke, heat, carbon monoxide and extreme heat sensors in one alarm – why would one pay for four?

For those vulnerable people who have relatives, they might prefer to look into one of the mobile phones and/or pendants that calls relatives and/or the emergency services immediately, such as this one from Amazon that includes a pendant for a one-off charge of £29:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lifemax-672-Home-Safety-Alert/dp/B001CIPW0M/ref=pd_cp_364_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1MFDF2R0JY2XN84C9YXB

or this one with a fall monitor for £150
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0186FP8RU?psc=1

(though there are MANY others at similar or lower prices and neither of these have been personally verified nor are any of these personally endorsed or recommended by Owl being simply for comparison purposes) nor do these pendants go through to a 24 hour control centre (though these are available from providers other than EDDC, see above).

For those vulnerable people who do not have relatives – tough, you are old and you must pay for it.

This is Austerity.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

20 Dec 2015

Posted under

Asset sweating, Austerity cuts

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1 Comment

“Charging old people for falling down is an affront to human decency”

During my time at Essex county fire and rescue service, barely a shift went by without receiving a call from an elderly person who had fallen in their home, or from their concerned neighbour or carer.

The calls were always the same: a frightened voice, racked with humility and embarrassment, apologising profusely for “wasting” our time. “I telephoned because I know you can get in my house. I can’t get up, you see. I’m so sorry to trouble you.”

I would mobilise a crew and inform the ambulance service, which wouldn’t be far behind. We’re the “fire and rescue” service, you see, and that’s what we do. It was all part of the service, along with rescuing donkeys from swimming pools, righting overturned horse boxes and getting dogs out of lakes. These days the service is so much more than pointing wet stuff at burning stuff.

So news that Tendring district council in Essex is planning to introduce a “falling fee” for elderly residents struck a blow to all that I knew about decency, humanity and my years in the service.

I only did four years and thought perhaps attitudes were changing, so I contacted a former colleague to ask his opinion. He responded with expletives, with anecdotes of broken hips and shattered wrists and ribs smashed on the sides of bathtubs, and how dealing with them needed the professional care that comes of regular first-aid training and having a paramedic on hand.

Paul Honeywood, a Conservative councillor for Tendring, defended the measure saying the council needs the £26 annual charge in order to continue offering a “lifting service”. “Having consulted users, we have discovered there is a demand – and the idea is now going through the budget process with a final decision to be made in February,” he said.

Ironically, Mr Honeywood is also an officer with the Citizens Advice Bureau , which offers assistance to people who feel that they are being unfairly discriminated against on the grounds of age under the Equality Act 2010. If I were an elderly resident of the area, I might feel that being charged £26 for the inconvenience of growing old would count as discrimination, and might complain to Mr Honeywood at both of his offices. Politics, local and national, feel so desperate and deluded as to be beyond satire.

The falling charge will apply from April, if approval goes through. But this has wider implications. If passed, it will almost certainly prompt other cash-strapped local councils to follow suit. Yet old people will have contributed to healthcare services all their lives, through income tax, council tax (part of which is diverted to their local fire service) and taxes on goods and services. And many of them will have served their countries in the second world war, fighting for Mr Honeywood and others to have the freedom to decide to fine them for growing old.

In Essex, older residents already pay £21 a month if they want a Careline “big red button” alarm system in their homes – the falling fee is extra. The sinister undertone in this discussion is one of fear, and the same old nasty politics. Instil fear in people who are not as young as they were, not quite as sprightly, who may be living alone, and may already be fearful not just of taking a tumble on the stairs but of what the future holds.

For public officials to capitalise on this fear of infirmity is both sinister and cruel. My grandmother, who is in her early 80s, has had the odd fall. But if Southend council thought to offer a £26-a-year service to pop her back on her feet, I’m sure she would politely tell them where to stick it.

Elderly people, save your pennies and buy a £10 mobile phone. Stick it in your pocket, and if you should find yourself needing to be picked up and nobody else can get into your home, 999 is – and will always be – free to call.

In the meantime, this Essex council wants a “consultation”. Let’s give it to them. As Martin Luther King once said: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter … What are you doing for others?”

http://gu.com/p/4f94g

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

17 Dec 2015

Posted under

Asset sweating, Austerity cuts

Tendring council will charge elderly people who fall £26 to pick them up

The proposal by Tendring District Council, Essex, would affect some 3,000 elderly and vulnerable residents who pay for its Careline service, which helps users live independently at home.

Pensioners who need help getting to their feet after a fall will be charged a £26 call-out fee as part of planned cost-cutting measures.

The proposal by Tendring District Council, Essex, would affect some 3,000 elderly and vulnerable residents who currently pay for its Careline service, which helps users live independently at home.

Among the technology offered by Careline is a pendant which allows the wearer to send out a distress signal to a call centre in case of a fall or other minor emergency.
The Careline service currently costs £21.60-a-month but the council is planning to introduce an additional £25.92 charge in the event that a worker is called out to pick up someone after a fall.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3364544/Pensioners-trip-fall-home-charged-26-local-council-come-pick-again.html

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

17 Dec 2015

Posted under

Austerity cuts

Osborne gives his image adviser 42% pay rise

“The disclosure comes in data that shows the bill for special advisers across government has risen to £9.2m in 2014-2015, up from £8.4m over the previous year.

In July, the chancellor told thousands of teachers, nurses, police, firefighters and civil servants that they would face another four-year pay freeze at 1% a year, as part of planned savings worth £17bn. Many more jobs are also set to be lost across the public sector.

The increasing use of public money to fund the chancellor’s office, where he now has 10 advisers, will anger many public-sector workers. The increase in money spent on special advisers is especially embarrassing for David Cameron because of previous pledges to cut the cost of government and the number of special advisers.

The increase in money spent on Osborne’s office will be seen as further evidence that he is seeking to increase his influence across Whitehall. Senior Tories believe he wishes to exert his influence as he seeks follow Cameron into the job of prime minister.

The data shows that Cameron has 32 advisers – six more than in November last year. Twenty-three are paid more than £63,000 a year. Topping the list are his head of communications, Craig Oliver, and chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, who both earn £140,000.”

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/17/osborne-hands-advisers-big-pay-rises-while-freezing-public-sector-wages

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

15 Dec 2015

Posted under

Austerity cuts, EDDC, Local Enterprise Partnership

Comments

1 Comment

East Devon’s future to be decided tomorrow

What sort of future are EDDC leaders leading us all into? What will their legacy be in our coastal towns, e.g. Exmouth, and in the lost years for rural economies lacking fast broadband?

And is their imminent devolution bid (to be submitted to Westminster in early January 2016), based on thorough consultation with councillors?

Answers a-plenty will emerge at the Full Council meeting tomorrow evening at EDDC HQ, Knowle, Sidmouth.

Public welcome. Come early to get a seat!

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

13 Dec 2015

Posted under

Asset sweating, Austerity cuts, DCC

Devon County Council: charges rise, services fall

“Six English councils – Breckland, Devon, Hinckley and Bosworth, South Northamptonshire and Sedgmoor – have seen their income from fees, sales and charges rise by more than 100% in the past three years, while Derbyshire, Westminster, Bristol and Shropshire, were the biggest risers in real terms, taking tens of millions of pounds more each year.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34966267

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

13 Dec 2015

Posted under

Asset sweating, Austerity cuts, Environment (local), Moirai Exmouth project, Public Open Space

Comments

2 Comments

“Pay to play” in “public” parks

Exmouth Splash project?

” … It is likely that there will be more tensions over the use of public space as councils across the country eye up private partnerships. “We’re seeing a lot of parks looking at introducing facilities that generate income,” said Drew Bennellick, head of landscape and natural heritage at the Heritage Lottery Fund. “Whether it’s Go Ape, crazy golf sites, multi-use football facilities that are floodlit, or cafes – they’re all exploring ways to potentially generate income to offset the cost of running the sites.”

A report by the fund last year estimated that 45% of local authorities are considering either selling parks and green spaces or transferring their management …”

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/dec/13/parents-protest-pay-to-play-parks-privatising-green-spaces

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

25 Nov 2015

Posted under

Austerity cuts, Environment (local), Tourism

Mystic Owl predicts …

… that the environment will be a big loser in this afternoon’s budget and, along with massive house building targets, will be the death knell for East Devon tourism.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

24 Nov 2015

Posted under

Austerity cuts

Warship decommissioned after £65m refit in 2014

Can’t blame this one on Labour, Dave!

“HMS Ocean, the “Flagship of the Royal Navy”, is to be decommissioned after a multi-million pound refit.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed the move would happen in 2018, when HMS Ocean will have “reached the end of her life”, despite no mention of it in Monday’s Strategic Defence and Security Review.

The Devonport-based helicopter carrier and assault ship, which is Britain’s biggest warship, underwent a £65m upgrade in 2014.

The MoD said it would maintain a “significant amphibious capability”.

It said there would be new Type 26 warships and frigates; two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers; as well as the existing fleet which includes HMS Bulwark.

HMS Ocean is currently deployed in the Mediterranean on a Nato exercise.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-34909649

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East Devon Watch

Posted on

19 Nov 2015

Posted under

Austerity cuts, EDDC, Exeter City Council, Greater Exeter, Sidmouth/ Sidford/ Sidbury, Teignbridge

Picking and choosing – EDDC doesn’t partner with Exeter to tackle homelessness, Teignbridge does

Also in the latest Express and Echo, it is revealed that Exeter has the highest level of homelessness outside London.

Exeter and Teignbridge have announced that they will work together to tackle it.

Silence from East Devon – where two homeless men have died on the streets of Sidmouth in the last few months – one in a freezing bus shelter and one in a church porch (where the church is trying desperately to do its bit to help people).

Are the homeless invisible to our council?

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

18 Nov 2015

Posted under

Asset sweating, Austerity cuts, DCC, EDDC, Seaton/ Colyford / Colyton

Seaton to lose its Voice?

Yet another example of East Devon District Council cherry-picking which assets it sells and which it keeps.

You might think it was simple: sell those that don’t make money and keep those that do. But it isn’t that simple when it comes to the arts and the community. Money was poured into the Honiton Beehive complex (£300,000 plus and maybe much more gifted, not loaned), the Thelma Hulbert Gallery, also in Honiton, has never made money but we are not allowed to know exactly how much it loses and the Manor Pavilion (Sidmouth) is similarly a financial mystery. EDDC hived off its leisure facilities to Leisure East Devon years ago but we are never too sure how much that company still receives in subsidy – information is scant.

But not so Seaton Town Hall – the town’s only arts and entertainment venue run by local social enterprise company Seaton’s Voice and called The Seaton Gateway. [A social enterprise company is not a not-for-profit company, it is simply a normal company that has a social mission as part of its Memorandum of Association according to government information]

Currently, the Gateway occupies the large ground floor which includes a large hall and bar facilities, the town council has the much smaller first floor and the museum the even smaller top floor. The upper floors are not accessible to disabled people having many stairs for access. The Gateway has three directors who run the venue with a large number of volunteer staff.

For some years, it appears that EDDC was prepared to subsidise The Gateway – which has made a name for itself with regular musical entertainment, live theatre broadcasts and rooms rented out to local groups and societies – EDDC has just written off a £30,000 loan it gave to Seaton’s Voice and was also paying 20% of the building’s utility bills.

Now all has changed. EDDC wants to divest itself of Seaton Town Hall and will only entertain transferring it to the town council and not to Seaton’s Voice.

However, in a twist of fate, at the same time, Devon County Council was keen to get rid of its own building in Seaton – the former Marshlands Centre which has been closed for some time – and for a knock-down price and the town council decided to buy it from them, using its reserves for the purchase, fearing that such an opportunity might not happen again.

This has put Seaton Town Council on the horns of a dilemma: move into its own almost purpose-built accommodation which it would own and run for itself or share an old building where the vast majority of the space is taken up by a private tenant which has been used to being subsidised or keep both buildings and all the financial pressures and problems of owning them both. But at the moment the Council IS saying both rather than one or the other.

It has been revealed that to make the building fit-for-purpose, the town council would need to take out a Public Works Loan of £400,000 plus and The Gateway company would need to fundraise around £200,000 – massive amounts for a small town council and for a small company.

If it keeps the town hall and raises the money, the town council will have a tenant which needs most of the useable and income-producing space but which operates with a shoestring staff of volunteers and which has not been used to operating at full cost and which will presumably also expect some sort subsidy from the town council.

In yet another twist of fate, the company running The Gateway has now said in the pages of the local press that it will not co-operate with the town council on a plan for the town hall now that it is purchasing Marshlands, because the council discussed the purchase behind closed doors without including them, and fearing, presumably and probably correctly, that the town council’s priorities cannot be its priorities.

It seems now that either the town council will decide it does not want the town hall at all or it will take on two buildings with the result that they will of necessity have much less to spend on the Town Hall than if it had been the only building it owned. But at the moment the Council IS saying both rather than one or the other.

So, we have SOME arts and community venues being subsidised by EDDC, and one it doesn’t want to subsidise and wants to slough off onto a small town council which would have to raise its precept in order to subsidise a private business to provide arts and community services.

Well done, EDDC. Still, at least councillors in the new HQ in Honiton will be able to pop to the Beehive and the Thelma Hulbert Gallery in their free time.

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

17 Nov 2015

Posted under

Austerity cuts, Police (local)

Comments

1 Comment

What should police stop doing?

With mental health, social care and homelessness budgets cut and terrorist threats increasing – just what should police forces stop doing if their numbers are cut to the bone?

” … You could give more to mental health and social services to ease their case loads and save police time. Vanished youth services could be restored, instead of police coping with the fallout. If not, then we need the police to sweep up after the cuts in every other service.

After Paris, would you want to be the home secretary or the chancellor who said getting down the deficit was a matter of “national security” while cutting the safety net of a reassuring, neighbourhood police force that makes people feel secure in a time of fear? There comes a tipping point where crime and disorder will rise: we may be about to find out exactly when that is.”

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/17/britain-police-cuts-theresa-may

Posted by

East Devon Watch

Posted on

13 Nov 2015

Posted under

Austerity cuts, Somerset County Council

Comments

1 Comment

Somerset council cuts catastrophic

Westcountry council has frozen ‘non-essential’ spending saying their financial situation is even worse than anticipated and it is ‘living beyond its means.’

In an email sent to staff, Somerset County Council chief executive Pat Flaherty blamed austerity measures for a projected overspend, adding the authority could not cut into reserves which were already at the absolute minimum.

He said that as a result, vacancies would not be filled unless absolutely necessary, buildings would be maintained to the bare, safe minimum standards and other measures would be taken in non-statutory areas.

Unions have reacted angrily to the move, saying they’re is ‘no more meat on the bone’ in the authority which has had to cut £100million from its budget in four years.

In his email, which has been seen by the Western Morning News, Mr Flaherty said it was no secret that setting the budget was going to be hard.

However, he added: “Over the recent months and weeks the detail of just how difficult it is going to be has got clearer.

“Sadly, the clearer the picture gets, the worse it looks.

“We all know the root causes of this – continued austerity and ever growing demand on our services, especially those for vulnerable children and adults.”

Mr Flaherty said “the fact is we are continuing to live beyond our means” and unless “we turn a corner on spending” the council will be up to £8 million overspent by the end of the year.

He said: ” This would be unacceptable as it would deplete our already minimal reserves. We therefore need to take urgent action on the spend that we do have control over.”

He said he knew the step would not be popular and praised the work of staff that doesn’t readily fit under the heading of a statutory service.

“What I am saying does not devalue that work, it simply accepts the painful reality that this council has to reduce its spending immediately if we are to be able to fulfil our statutory requirements to support the most vulnerable people in our communities,” said.

Oliver Foster-Burnell, regional organiser for Unison, said areas like services for the homeless were already suffering.

“Here in Somerset the County Council have just announced proposals that are set to see £900,000 removed from funding given to homeless services, the impact of that on the local community will be huge and costs will be felt by other authorities like the police and social Services.”

He said that the council’s announcement means that it will now look closely at how it responds to things that it regards as non-essential services across the County.

“There is just no more meat that can come off the bone here in Somerset,” he said.

“Our members have seen restructures, redundancies, changes in working practices and our message to Government is that enough is enough.

“The council has stated it is set to overspend by £7 million, its overspend within other areas like children’s social care is set to reach £11 million by the end of this financial year and the council is already using its reserves to pay for that.”

In a statement issued to the WMN, Mr Flaherty said he had make sure the council balanced its books.

“We have to legally, and this is very difficult when our funding is being cut so dramatically and there is more demand for what we do.”

He said any overspend would cut away at reserves, which were already at the minimum recommended for a council of its size and budget.

“That minimum is there for a reason and I cannot put this authority in a position where it does not have the ability to respond to unforeseen costs.”

He said that while funding was falling, the demand for services was increasing.

“Demographic pressure alone is going to add around £5m to our costs next year alone,” said Mr Flaherty.

“Living within our means is challenging but it’s something we have to do.”

http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/West-council-freezes-spending-saying-living-means/story-28169728-detail/story.html

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