Community cuts proposed to balance BCP budget
The changes come as the authority needs to make £33 million in savings
CUTS to community groups, including the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, are being proposed as Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council find savings for the coming financial year.
The ‘savings’ are also likely to accelerate the loss of council posts, including staff who work to protect the community.
In an occasionally bad tempered scrutiny committee meeting on Monday evening council leader Drew Mellor was accused deferring some of the £33million savings until after the coming local government elections, rather than put them in place before voters go to the polls in May.
The current proposals involve not acting on some of the ‘savings’ until after July.
Cllr Lewis Allison accused the council leader of “coming dangerously close to misleading councillors” over the council’s financial position and his administration’s approach to the budget– a charge Cllr Mellor denied and asked for an apology over, but failed to get.
Cllr Mellor also denied a claim that there was another budget version waiting to be put forward when it was too late to challenge its proposals. He told the committee that the proposals they were discussing were the ones which would go to Cabinet on Wednesday (8th) although the Conservative administration would continue striving to make improvements until the budget is finally approved.
He said he would rather not be making any cuts and would rather not see the 4.99per cent increase in the council tax being suggested from April, but had a duty to produce a balanced budget, claiming the authority was in a much better financial position than most.
He said despite the inflationary pressures, the council would put an extra £25m into adult services and over three years will have almost doubled the budget for children’s services.
Former council leader Vikki Slade accused him of being calculating by putting off some of the cuts until after the May elections.
“How can this be seen as being anything else other than very cynical …you’re not going to do it (make some of the cuts) until July 1st unless the magic money tree blossoms suddenly…it’s obvious why you won’t do this until July, because you are a coward,” she said.
She said the proposed cuts for some community groups, including the Citizens Advice Bureau and the Community Action Network, could result in some of them disappearing within two or three years.
Cllr Mellor said his administration had a proud record on community investment and said the July 1st date had been suggested because he hoped to be able to come up with other solutions by then, avoiding the need for all of the currently proposed savings.
“We’re putting them in the budget and saying there’s a strong likelihood that we will have to make those changes, but we’re not giving up,” he said.
The meeting heard from finance officer Adam Richens that £6.5million of savings had not been fully identified but senior officers said they were confident of finding the money.
There was concern from committee chairman Cllr Lawrence Williams and the authority’s newest councillor, Cllr Andy Martin, about the proposed loss of grant to the BSO which Cllr Williams said would amount to cuts of 45per cent over five years, a figure which Cllr Martin said would cost the BSO £115,000 a year, putting its global reputation and its community work at risk. He said the organisation’s chief executive had described the proposal as “catastrophic.”
Cllr Lesley Dedman described the overall budget proposals as “extremely risky” and said she was concerned about increasing beach huts charges and a lack of progress on the Roeshott Hill proposals.
“The whole thing is worrying. The administration is not doing its job residents’ expect to ensure financial stability,” she said.
Cllr Steve Bartlett claimed there might more pain yet to be revealed when the full details of the proposals were examined and said he feared that the less well off and vulnerable were likely to suffer the most from the changes being requested.
“There is some real pain in this budget…the devil, I suspect, will be in the detail,” he said, warning that there could yet be more problems if some of the capital development projects being proposed by Future Places, the council’s arms-length development company, failed to deliver with the cost of some business cases alone put at £1million each and up to £8m of council funding earmarked for the organisation.
Cllr Mellor admitted there was a risk with development projects but warned that if the council didn’t find ways of creating income, while at the same time improving local areas, there might be more cuts to services in the future.
“Going forward we will need to find other ways than the council tax to fund council services,” he said.
The council leader was criticised by Cllrs Slade and Allison for then leaving the meeting without the apolgogy the council’s Standards Committee had told him to make.
Chairman Cllr Williams said he would make the views known to Cllr Mellor.