Labour urges Bristol mayor George Ferguson to stop cuts to frontline services
Labour councillors are urging Bristol mayor George Ferguson to make changes to his civic budget to protect frontline services.
Mr Ferguson promised to look after the most vulnerable people in the city as much as he could when he revealed proposed £35 million cuts from next year's budget.
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City Hall, College Green, Bristol
But the Labour group has found more than £700,000 worth of cuts which they say directly affects those most in need.
Labour leader Helen Holland said: "People are really beginning to feel the difference now as a result of cuts in local government and cuts in benefits which are hitting the poorest and those most in need."
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She added that the Labour group wanted to be seen as advising the mayor and not launching an attack on him.
One of the worst proposed cuts discovered by Labour is £100,000 which is expected to be taken out of the budget for community transport.
This voluntary service provides free lifts to the elderly and infirm to doctor's and hospital appointments, lunch clubs and shopping trips.
Other cuts which Labour want to save include:
+ £29,000: Clean and Green budget - this is pump-priming money to pay for clean up projects in neighbourhoods such as providing dog poo bins and litter initiatives;
+ £62,000: extra support for neighbourhood partnerships which serve Hartcliffe, Withywood, Knowle West and St Paul's so people can make best use of council services to improve their communities;
+ £150,000: internal auditing - this refers to council staff who specialise in detecting fraudulent use of benefits or other council services. Their work saves hundreds of thousands of pounds of council taxpayers' money each year;
+ £150,000: parking charges at Ashton Court, Blaise Castle and Oldbury Court;
Ms Holland said money could be saved from other areas of the civic budget to protect frontline services. For example, the council generates more than £12 million in parking fees which could be used to pay for community transport.
Another example is the council's legal department costs nearly £8 million a year to run - yet they rely heavily on commissioning work to outside law firms and consultants.
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Ms Holland is submitting her group's suggested amendments to the mayor's office who will consider them before the council's budget meeting which starts at 2pm on February 26 at City Hall, College Green.
8 Comments
by fishinthepond
Saturday, February 09 2013, 2:36PM
“She added that the Labour group wanted to be seen as advising the mayor and not launching an attack on him.
Surely that's the role of Cabinet. Oh yes, Labour refused to participate.”
by SCHRIS
Saturday, February 09 2013, 10:37AM
“So £34.3 million of the cuts do NOT effect frontline services ! Maybe an extra 0.5% on the council tax is the answer to avoid the £700,000 cuts that they say do effect the frontline? Also, what about the proposal of closing all public toilets, isn't this frontline???”
by bris_cit
Friday, February 08 2013, 10:16PM
“No. The funny thing is that youth services should have been outsourced last week but haven't been because highly paid city council managers have cocked it up and staff are unable to be legally transferred to the new outsourced organisations.
That means we're paying outsourced organisations money and the staff money and it will take a long time before we're not paying twice.
In other words this money saving plan is costing us a fortune. Lucky the Labour Party and the press are keeping schtum about this I guess or there might be uproar.”
by charliecycle
Friday, February 08 2013, 9:07AM
“The funny thing is the youth service has been outsourced, and they make no comment”
by bs4Burts
Friday, February 08 2013, 8:34AM
“Not sure neighborhood partnerships do enough to put things in day to day language or use up to date technology.
Its a nice idea but not easy enough for people to really affect change”
by Scribe2
Friday, February 08 2013, 8:20AM
“Labour might have some credibility about savings if they had accepted posts in the Cabinet. Easy to shout from outside - anyone can do that!!!!”
by Tim_M
Thursday, February 07 2013, 6:47PM
“£150,000: parking charges at Ashton Court, Blaise Castle and Oldbury Court - this does most certainly not affect "most vulnerable people" for any sane definition of "people most in need".
I look at this list and can't help but think that if these are really the most criticiseable bits Labour has found, in the proposed budget, it must make a rather good job of protecting essential front line services overall.”
by Spiggett
Thursday, February 07 2013, 3:39PM
“People always refer to maintaining "front-line" services,
the irony being that these are often there to channel information to the diminishing
"back-office", that actually get the job done...”