Too be disgusted and scared by the proposed cuts by our local council for 2013/14?

[DowntonNappy]

Got a letter home last week from school saying that our local council intends to cut almost £30 million from its learning and leisure services by 2013/14, and also housing and social care.

The school have expressed their concern over this and want all local parents to go on the website, complete the survey and express their views. I'm doing it just now and am shocked by the questions. It's mainly disagree, agree, neutral answers. I'm paraphrasing, but here's some of the propsals:

Close down the social services office in X (town).

Cut janitorial positions, and instead provide one janitor to cover multiple schools.

Cut canteen staff, free fruit and bread, and increase school meal prices by 25p (excluding free school meals).

Withdraw funding for (local sheltered housing) and encourage elderly people to live independently within their own homes.

Withdraw individual additional support need staff and replace with a more 'generic' assistant.

Reduce cleaning staff in schools.

Reduce our discretionary and community care grants.

Cease free school swimming lessons; only charge those not in receipt of free school meals.

Remove lunchtime patrol staff (lollipop ladies).

Reduce funding to citizens advice bureaux.

Reduce funding to local police and fire safety community based initiatives.

Move waste collection from 2 weekly to three weekly.

Charge £20 for Blue Badges.

And THEN it asks at the end, would you be willing to pay more council tax to help X X Council with its services?

What. A. Joke.

Mind you I will say, on a lighter note, that it would be a great thing if they got rid of our school 'janitor' as he is only part time anyway, and a useless tosser at the best of times. I'd happily volunteer to do whatever it is he pretends to do and I wouldn't act like an utter creep either.

Where I live, Australia, you get nothing for free.

We are having school swimming this week. $220. If you don't pay, you don't go.

Dd1 is going on a two night camp also this week. $300.

Dd1 is having trouble with her back. She had two doctors appointments ($60 each) and an x-ray ($178) in a day last week.

She now needs to see an occupational therapist $170 for 45 minutes.

This afternoon, we got our 'fees' for our ordinary government school for next year $720. It's for books, access to the Internet, stationary, and building maintenance. It is not a private school.

You have to pay $20 to go to the tip.

It sounds like what Scottish councils did years ago - Council Tax has been frozen for years here and we've had cuts after cuts after cuts. At least your council is consulting!

they are naughty, they could also add to the list: Make council pen pushers work normal hours (here they work 10-4! traffic jams at 4:15 when they are all heading home, nice job if you can get it.), or get rid of some of the useless civil servants and operate more like a business where a certain degree of efficiency is expected of all employees (yes yes, SOME work hard,but most don't).

Oh what a wonderful goverment we have (not) and how they are so missing the point with their austerity measures. They want people to get off benefits and yet cut jobs and services. Well excuse me for stating the bleeding obvious; it aint gonna work!

Our council did this a couple of years ago, the website had the questions with several radio buttons you could click from 1(I agree) to 6 (what a stupid idea). And based their cuts on some of the input.

Obviously not everyone who needed the services most could complete the survey, so it was up to those that could to provide a fair and balanced view, but they certainly didn't implement all the stupid ideas cuts that they mentioned.

I have relatives all over the world. Most countries provide very little that you don't have to pay for but this is balanced by the fact that they earn a far better salary and pay less in Government taxes. Even the lowest paid people do well financially and earn enough to pay for a health insurance of some kind. We just don't have that kind of set up in this country....we have taxes which are supposed to go into paying for these services.....only they are not.

Euphemiaaaarrrrgggghhhh - I'm in Scotland too.

Ozziegirly - I was very sleepy lastnight when posting, but here are the 'savings' the council predicts if each proposal is carried out (plus a few other proposals i forgot to include yesterday):

Reduce the budget for residential schools (disability) and focus more on community care - saving £100,000

Withdraw funding for X school for young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties - saving £330,000

Provide equipment and adaptations for younger adults only to people with critical and substantial needs - saving £1million

Close down the social services office in X (town) - saving £89,000

Cut janitorial positions, and instead provide one janitor to cover multiple schools - saving £1.46million

Cut canteen staff, free fruit and bread, and increase school meal prices by 25p (excluding free school meals) - saving £906,000

Withdraw funding for (local sheltered housing) and encourage elderly people to live independently within their own homes - saving £1.9million

Reduce number of care home placements purchased by 200 by 2015/16 - saving £4.7million

Withdraw individual additional support need staff and replace with a more 'generic' assistant.

Reduce cleaning staff in schools - saving £594,000

Reduce our discretionary and community care grants - saving £400,000

Cease free school swimming lessons; only charge those not in receipt of free school meals - saving £110,000

Remove lunchtime patrol staff (lollipop ladies) - saving £300,000

Reduce funding to citizens advice bureaux - saving £76,000

Reduce funding to local police and fire safety community based initiatives - saving £160,000

Move waste collection from 2 weekly to three weekly - savig £633,000

Charge £20 for Blue Badges (income £120,000)

The lollipop lady thing worries me because the school gate opens onto a main road and there are lots of young children who take themselves to home and back at lunchtime. The lollipop man currently working there is a saint and really keeps the children in check.

The free fruit and bread thing is no big deal for me (my dd only comes home with 1 piece of fruit each week), but it's the less fortunate children who'll really miss out.

I can see the school swimming lessons thing is a bit of a luxury, but when I was little - until now - primary 6 pupils were given free swimming lessons (block of 10). I know a lot of parents won't be able to afford this - myself included - if they're asked to pay in future, so it's the children who'll miss out.

Cozy9 I'm in a fairly seniorish position in a local authority, so I suppose you're talking about me. It's true that I primarily go to work to put a roof over our heads and food on the table and not to altruistically further the public good, but I don't think that's unreasonable. I'm curious to know why you think my colleagues and I should work for less than market rate?

Not all Councils are having to make the same scale of cuts; and there are definitely some which have form for scaremogering. The Telegraph did an expose, and found examples of ouncils talking about all the nasty cuts they were being forced into by central Government cuts - cuts which they never made Such tactics are wrong, but may still happen

Also, rises in Council tax are not permitted at present, so the leaflet raising a stupidly wrong issue.

Is it genuinely a council leaflet, or is it a party produced one? It sounds as if it might be the latter, and the level of potential confusion and scaremongering is such that it might be worth a complaint.

All of the proposals are from the council's official website, where they linked to the survey.

The leaflet I got from school just advised us of the survey link so we could go and complete it. Otherwise, we'd never have known. And responses have to be in by 1st Nov.

For such a big issue, it's not widely publicised.

We have to pay fir swimming lessons
One terms worth
About £70 I think

Rubbish collection is already fortnightly

Not all council workers work from 10-4 , most are paid a pittance - bin men, library workers, lollipop men , dinner ladies

A lot of crap stereotyping on this thread

are you in N Lanarkshire? Sounds similar to the info we got on a leaflet through the post

What did you think the cuts meant? That other people would suffer but not your area? The chances are that a local high unemployment rate means high deprivation, which means more of the money was coming from central government, so the cuts have a greater impact.

Re. council tax, the government 'provided money' (haha) to freeze council tax, but it is a local decision (which can then be overturned by government). If the local population demonstrated a willingness to pay higher tax to save services, the government wouldn't overturn it.

The comment about holding back money in savings is hilarious - councils need budget reserves and smaller scale cuts have been happening for years, meaning in many areas there is not much money left. So many council services are statutory that there is not much choice left in what to cut. The lollipop lady thing is a classic, many people would assume it's compulsory but it's not. They'll be hoping schools will pick it up out of their budgets.

In lots and lots of areas staff have voluntarily reduced hours/taken pay cuts to save money already. Often this affects low-paid workers too.

Councils don't want to make these cuts, have a look at Ray Mallon talking honestly about the situation in Middlesbrough. As an independent, he seems to have been able to talk about it more effectively.

That's because so many Councils are managing their budgets in ways in which such swinging cuts are not necessary.

How big is your Council's reserves? Also, did they carry out a proper review before the cuts of their services to establish vfm and options for future service delivery?

It's a strange list, because it just seems to be a grab of a bit of anything/everything and not the result of a full review as that would lead to changes, not just a (doomed) attempt to do everything in the same way.

Meditirina, another way of looking at that 'expose' is that councils proposed cuts, consulted local residents and responded to local views. You know, a democratic dialogue. I can name several examples in Conservative authorities.

And most councils are in the middle of huge Vfm/'service improvement' reviews, but these usually result in changes which take several years to come to fruition. E.g. merging services with other authorities takes time. Unfortunately cuts have to be made now, so in the interim these cuts have to happen. I'd bet every service in the OP's council was given a 10% savings target.

the council i am employed by is currently making major cuts to mental health services

at the same time it is bankrolling the local professional rugby league club

i really cannot believe that council tax payers favour vanity projects such as

I can't believe people are saying no fruit is a good thing! Some of those children don't eat well at all at home and need that fruit!

Oh, I agree that Councils of all colours are making cuts.

But some are balancing the books with far less pain, and some have much lower bills than others. That's why you'll never get national outrage, for many areas are simply it gong through ths. Op's Council is clearly dreadful, but the rest of the country will be more concerned with their own local council and wil, put their energies into getting the best possible services from their local revenues and resources.

On reserves, there is a huge difference between having about £20m and having over £95m. And a huge difference on whether the Council has already committed to using them, or is just letting them sit there. That is why residents need to keep an eye on what theirs is doing.

I thought it was a government stipulation for reception year 1 & 2 children to have a free piece of fruit
Instead of the free milk we had when we were younger

" I'd bet every service in the OP's council was given a 10% savings target"

If they really went about it on that model, then I expect problems will continue for some time to come.

I think these are utter shit:

Withdraw funding for (local sheltered housing) and encourage elderly people to live independently within their own homes.

Withdraw individual additional support need staff and replace with a more 'generic' assistant.

Reduce our discretionary and community care grants.

Reduce funding to citizens advice bureaux.

Reduce funding to local police and fire safety community based initiatives.

They are going to put the most vulnerable people in our society at risk. I would be feeling very worried too, OP, if I were you. The first one on the list, I know of a case locally of the DWP trying to cut some benefits to someone in a care home, they were arguing he could be encouraged to live independently at home. This was someone who could not see or hear and had learning difficulties. His carers knew he was prone to doing things like not recognising that kettles have hot water in them and he liked to chuck water over himself for fun and so a huge effort was undertaken to fight for him to stay put. With their support, he was able to stay where he was, but this is the kind of person who is at risk if more funding is withdrawn.

I agree Meditirina, the 10% across the board is a rubbish way to make the cuts, but it's the quickest as they just force the decisions down to the lowest level possible and everyone scrambles to find something.

There is huge variation in the quality of budget management within councils, but there is also huge variation in the level of savings that need to be made. It's not really a party issue at local level, I don't think.