It's complicated. There's no doubt about that. But pouring through scores of pages of Salford Council treasury and budget reports it becomes apparent that the £24.561million of cuts that the Council is expected to rubber stamp this afternoon are not quite what they seem.
IS IT REALLY £24.561MILLION OF CUTS?
The actual ConDem Government cut to Salford City Council - while horrific and disgusting – is actually £16.088million, not £24.561million.
The Council, led by Salford Mayor, Ian Stewart, has added a further £8.473million for things like inflation, paying for obscenely expensive PFI school building, financing redundancy payments for its staff and - most weird and costly of all – a £6.464million sum for `budget deficits', or for cuts it cannot implement.
In other words, Salford Council is, in part, imposing cuts so that it can pay off staff it's axing as part of the cuts, and has over £6million as a contingency for cuts it can't put in place.
A simple question that we would have liked to ask the Salford Council is `Why have a contingency of £6.464million for cuts? Why don't you just not impose the cuts in the first place?'
£6million would go a long way to saving transport for special needs people in the city, would save Care On Call's £600,000 cut, would save Salford Children's Camp, would allow The Grange to stay open for short term respite care, would save the Welfare Rights and Debt department and lots, lots more (see previous Salford Star article for full details of the `contingency' – click here).
Salford Council didn't even give us the courtesy of a reply to our email.
IS SALFORD COUNCIL CUTTING SERVICES TO VULNERABLE PEOPLE TO PAY FOR PRESTIGE PROJECTS?
For this one you have to get your head around the difference between Salford Council's `capital' spending and `revenue' spending.
Capital spending is for so-called one-off projects like buildings, parks, schools, cycle routes and stuff like that. All the prestige spending on bridges, fountains, `aspirational walkways', Chapel Street, MediaCityUK, Port Salford and everything like that also comes under `capital' spending.
Revenue spending is basically for people – services and staff (although big salaries for Council employees working on capital projects comes under `capital' spending too).
Salford Council and Mayor Ian Stewart have always maintained that even if it did stop spending on the prestige projects it wouldn't affect cuts to the revenue budget because the two budgets can't be swapped around. However…
…These capital projects are financed by borrowing – and the financing of that borrowing is met from the revenue budget ie from the same budget that pays for services to the vulnerable.
The latest Salford Council report on its `revenue and capital programme' states quite unclearly that: "The revenue budget incorporates the provision for capital financing costs on the use of £23.2m of new general unsupported borrowing to replace capital receipts in funding the 2013/14 capital programme, in addition to the use of £12.55m of unsupported borrowing for invest to save and self-financing proposals. This is supplemented by the use of £4.25m of general unsupported borrowing carried forward from 2013/14 (from de-prioritised allocations) which is already provided for in the base 2014/15 revenue budget."
And adds: "The remaining £27.450m will be used in general support and the capital financing charges on that unsupported borrowing can be met from the revenue budget. Appropriate provision has been made in the revenue budgets for both the General Fund to fund the unsupported borrowing to be used in funding of the capital programme."
One of the risks identified in the report is that "Unsupported borrowing will be over-committed and become unaffordable to the revenue budget".
While the Council's revenue budget for 2014/15 has been reined in quite significantly, the revenue budget is still `supporting' past borrowing (and future borrowing) on controversial prestige schemes.
The capital budget for 2014/15 does include a point to "continue the regeneration of Central Salford, with primary focus on the Chapel St, Greengate and Irwell River Park areas". That's more bridges, unaffordable housing, nice pathways from the University and Manchester City Centre to Media City and more…
Ian Stewart has accused the Salford Star publicly of "economic illiteracy" – yet neither the Mayor nor Salford Council would allow us to question either elected representatives or the Council's Chief Financial Officer on our budget discoveries...in fact, they wouldn't even answer our email.
Yet people protesting outside Salford Civic Centre today to try and save services for the disabled, elderly, young, those with special needs, those in poverty and more, deserve answers on how the Council budget is being divided up.
By not holding itself up to account, those people at the sharp end of the cuts may well be feeling that Salford Council and Mayor Ian Stewart have got something to hide.
Update: 26th February
Salford Council Cuts Meeting Shut Down By Campaigners - click here
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