For details of the latest round of Salford Council cuts totalling £16.7million (not including £6.725 of cuts already announced) and Salford City UNISON reaction see previous Salford Star article – click here.
It's high noon last Friday and around a large table in the City Mayor's office sit Martin Vickers, the Council's Strategic Director for Customer and Support Services; Neil Thornton the Council's Chief Financial Officer; Bill Hinds Assistant Mayor for Finance and Support Services; the Mayor himself Ian Stewart and his PR man Matt Finnegan.
They're all ready for the press briefing on £16.712million of cuts – except that there's only two journalists here – a bloke from the Manchester Evening News, which had already run the details of the cuts in its morning edition (breaking an embargo), and, er, the Salford Star, which had not actually received an invite to the media event…but got in after complaints to the press office.
On the table are three wads of paper – two, quite rightly, blaming the ConDem Government in words and graphs for the cuts to Salford's services, and another with 17 pages worth of detail for cuts adding up to £16.712million in the year 2013-14, up to £18.955million by 2015-16.
We have less than a minute to digest the figures and Council explanations before Ian Stewart launches into a formal speech citing Government cuts of £100million over the last four years for the Council's woes…
"This has been heartbreaking" he says "We've worked as hard as we can to mitigate against these Coalition Government cuts. We have, where we can, minimised the impact on terms and conditions for staff, we have tried to mitigate and keep as low as possible job losses for staff and, of course, our primary concern was to try wherever possible to maintain the level of service to the people of this city. On all three counts we have done our best but I have to admit we have failed to be able to mitigate against the affect of the Government cuts to the level that we would have liked to.
"That means that, although we have the lowest job losses in Greater Manchester, we have amongst lowest reduction to services in Greater Manchester, and we will have certainly amongst the lowest council tax rise in Greater Manchester when we've concluded that, this is still a horrendous situation for the people of this city, and the responsibility for that lies fairly and squarely with the Coalition Government.
"The largest and most horrendous cuts will affect those who most need the services, that is a stark fact about the impact of Government cuts – we could not completely mitigate against cuts to vulnerable people even though we wanted to…"
A quick scurry through the 17 pages of figures is like seeing Salford going back to the Thatcherite dark age of the 1980s in fast forward as the city's social safety net becomes unravelled…
£2.1million cut to the Looked After Children budget…£370,000 cut in the Joint Outcomes Fund which helps relieve family poverty… £300,000 cut to the Starting Life Well Team: `will lead to some reduction in support for vulnerable children aged 0-5'…£750,000 cut to `Early Intervention and Prevention' which will see two children's centres closed at Barton Moss and Eccles, with `service reductions' in speech and language support and parenting programmes…plus more cuts to the Safeguarding Team, the Youth Offending Service, transport for kids with Special Education Needs and the subsidy for music teaching…
…And these are just the first four pages, for cuts to Children's Services totalling £4.846million…
From somewhere in the distance Ian Stewart's finishing his speech… "The big question for the people of this city is, `How do we deal with the macro issues which is at Government level?' In the meantime we are answerable to the people of this city and therefore I would invite questions from you…
The bloke from the Evening News picks up immediately on over £2million cuts to support for Salford's kids in care…particularly in light of the Council's past record in failing to safeguard vulnerable children…
Ian Stewart is quick to reassure him that it's a result of Salford now being `adequate', as opposed to `inadequate', in looking after kids…"As we become more successful in reducing the number of children who require those services, there is a reduced need. It's not about top slicing a budget it's more about there being a reduced number of children needing those services. Where those services need to be provided there will be the same quality of service…"
Martin Vickers adds that the number of kids needing the service is reducing because of the Council's investment into Early Prevention, and Ian Stewart adds that the city's nationally acknowledged children's centres – "the epitome of partnership working" - is the reason why there is a reducing number of children who need these services…
…Except that the Early Intervention programme is being cut and two children's centres are shutting down…Councillor Bill Hinds admits that "this is an area that could bite us in the backside and we would have to be ready for that…that's why we have reserves."
So, it's over to the Salford Star and it's like `Where do you start?' We complain that the Evening News printed the cuts details before unions and Council staff had been informed… "Neither am I too happy about that" says Ian Stewart "We expected that would go out after this meeting here…it was given out in a preparatory way so that the organisations could come, understanding what was going to be presented…"
So why didn't the Salford Star get it? "Well that's a different matter…" What? So we're discriminated against? "This is a budget briefing" moans PR man Matt Finnegan, the man in charge of messing up the press coverage. Council workers trade union, Salford City UNISON, demanded an apology from the Mayor in relation to the MEN story.
"I have learned from this situation" says Ian Stewart "It will colour the way I do business in the future…"
We're told to ask questions on the detail of the cuts…One figure springs out – a £100,000 cut to Short Breaks funding. This is funding that allows vulnerable children to take short stays away from home at places like The Grange, giving carers some respite too. An incredibly important part of certain children's lives that usually goes below the radar of media coverage.
The explanation by the £100,000 cut states that there will be `no significant loss to service users as costs will be lowered'…
"Oh I thought you'd major on the adults" says Ian Stewart
`Give us a chance', we say. We're only on page three of the cuts here…
"It is a real cut in that facility for young people to be able to have short breaks" he says "There isn't a person in Salford who would not want us to maintain those things but sadly it sometimes means that, with Government cuts, councils can't. That's why we lost The Salfordian hotel for adults' holidays, which is now run through a trust…This is not the loss of a complete facility but it is a bad affect on it and we openly admit that…but it's the provision of the holidays not the service or buildings."
So The Grange is safe? Martin Vickers confirms "The Grange is firmly staying and is part of our plans."
Ian Stewart is constantly at pains to point out that all these cuts are "caused by the Government reducing the money we have – if the government gives us the money that we should be entitled to in this city we will not make any cuts in our operations".
Anyone who's not living in Cloud Cuckoo Land (also known as the Tory Shires) knows it's the ConDem Government that is responsible for hammering those who can least afford reductions in services, rather than hammering the bankers et al as the wealth gap in the UK rises. Unfortunately, it's the Labour councils which are imposing the Government cuts that are going to get the brunt of protests.
Does it worry the Mayor that the first public campaign meeting against Council cuts is happening this Saturday to protest at reductions in teaching support for deaf and visually impaired children?*
"Of course it does, and if we weren't the decision makers at this level we would be running the campaign and supporting it, absolutely" he says "These are real cuts. They're going to affect real people with needs. We don't want that to happen but it is happening, therefore we're trying as best we can to minimise these cuts and their impact. This is an ongoing cut caused by the Government reducing the money we have. If the Government gives us the money that we should be entitled to in this city we will not make any cuts in our operations.
"I'm quite open to criticism about the judgement as long as people accept that the judgement is made within the overall problem of the Government taking millions of pounds away from the people of this city" he adds "We will stand the criticism that we have made an error of judgement in a particular aspect but we will not stand criticism that we don't want to protect the interests of the people of this city."
If it's about judgement, there's a £35,000 cut to support for adults with learning difficulties – but the Council has recently spent £39,000 for some signs at Media City…
"You should be making your readers aware that a council is restricted by what is called capital spending, you can't vire it by law" the Mayor responds "Get me that power and I will exercise it…"
Okay, we wanted to add, what about the payments to staff and consultants supporting Salford City Reds...Oh, and your PR conssultant, Matt Finnegan himself – but the Mayor has already moved on…
"Of course any government would have to make cuts in the current global situation but this Coalition Government is making cuts too fast, too hard and too deep and they're not listening to local government as much as they should be – even when they have they've not acted hard enough in backing off from the cuts that they've made."
But the vast majority of these cuts are aimed at the most vulnerable people in Salford…
"We spend most of our money on the vulnerable so when we make cuts it's going to hit them" says Bill Hinds, adding that up until recently 72p out of every £1 was spent by the council on social services and education.
"Let's be clear" explains Ian Stewart "We are an old city in industrial decline; we have over the years tried to stop that decline but we still have levels of deprivation that are amongst the highest in the country, and once you start to apportion funds then you apportion funds to the most needy and this Council has a proud record of doing that.
"This council had the best nursery provision in the whole of the country and the Labour Government adopted that system for the whole country" he adds "This council has protected the adult residents who need care, way above most authorities in the country… The problem is that the depth of recent cuts and what's coming means that that level of investment in those services is not sustainable. We have to cut across all services."
So why aren't you and the Assistant Mayors not taking a cut in wages?
"What makes you think we're not?" he responds.
It's not on these cuts details
"It's a pertinent question" he says "What I do in relation to my own terms and conditions is something that's not fixed to this but may be of interest to you in the future…"
We wait with baited breath. But in the meantime, how does the Mayor think the unions will react to 151 job losses plus more cuts in services?
"If I was the union leader, even if we'd come in at much less than this, I couldn't possibly ask my members to agree to these things" he surprisingly states "Why should workers or the public, or the opposition politicians at national level accept the rationale that this Government has done. All we can do, unless we can see a different government at national level with a different strategy, is our best to mitigate against them.
"The biggest cut is in the service for adult people who need care, that's heartbreaking in itself" he adds.
£1million is being axed from the Adult Social Care budget over the next three years. Salford was one of the few councils in the country which supported people with `Moderate' (Level 2) needs. Now it will only support those with `Substantial' (Level 3) needs…
"Just because we re-designate people Level 2 doesn't mean they don't need the care, they will suffer because of that" he explains "We don't want that to happen. These are good things that we do here, but these are real cuts affecting real people."
Someone comes in the room and says there's only five minutes left. But we haven't even started hardly – we're only onto page 5 of the cuts details…
There's still a £850,000 cut to residential care for adults, shoving them out into `care in the community' (wasn't that Thatcher's mantra?)…there's still the £450,000 cut to day care services hanging over from last year…there's £1.26million being lost from NHS budgets and £345,000 from the Public Health budget being transferred over to the Council in the health service changes…There's £1.5million being axed from the refuse service…£100,000 slashed from cleaning budgets for Council buildings…Three ranger posts are going to save £93,000…
And on and on it goes…Parks and Cemeteries will remain unlocked at night to save £56,000, while maintenance for parks and open spaces is being slashed by £215,000…Taxi licence fees are going to rise to bring in £50,000… £465,000 is being slashed from the Highways budget…£300,000 saved in transport subsidies for MediaCityUK…reductions in opening hours at museums and art galleries, including Ordsall Hall, and volunteers will be sought `to undertake certain aspects of leisure and culture delivery' (eg libraries) …
…151 jobs are going and £1.6million is being slashed in a `workforce reform' proposal which includes a pay freeze for senior management but no pay cuts for top earners like Chief Exec Barbara Spicer… All in all £16.712million of cuts this coming financial year, on top of £6.725million already announced.
"Your readers can play a role" says Ian Stewart "What we need now is the public to tell us whether our judgement of how to get that level of £24m in total is right; whether there's something we've missed. We are now open to consultation, we are now open to listen. We genuinely have an open mind and where we can mitigate against any of these we will do, there is a willingness to do that. Where it's shown to us that it can be done a different way, and there is no reason why we shouldn't do it a different way, we will be open to doing that.
`You could always stick two fingers up to the ConDems and refuse to implement these cuts', we'd like to say. But time has run out...
"I must ask you for a balanced approach in reporting" he pleads "We are making our best efforts to safeguard services…"
We can only be balanced, the Star responds, if the Council talks to us, answers our questions and provides information…otherwise we would conclude that the Council and Mayor are trying to keep its own community in the dark…
• As yet there is no information on the budget consultation on Salford Council's website. We have been assured that this will appear very shortly www.salford.gov.uk
• Public Meeting against Salford Council plans to reduce services for some of the most vulnerable disabled children in Salford, backed by Salford City UNISON and Salford Deaf Society…
Saturday 26th January 11am at Swinton British Legion, 3 Cheetham Road, M27 4UQ. Click here for further details
Photo of Ian Stewart by Gareth Lyons
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