As the "poverty deniers" in the Tory Party pushed through £4.4billion of Tax Credit cuts yesterday, this morning brought the stark reality as Strategic Assistant Mayor, Paula Boshell, told a meeting of Salford City Council that 15,700 families who rely on the in-work benefits could be over £1,000 worse off per year.
From April, the level at which people can earn before the tax credits are withdrawn is to be cut from £6,420 to £3,850 – a 40% reduction which, explained Boshell, will "cost low income working families an average of £1,050 a year."
Added to this is a speeding up of the rate at which the benefit is lost as pay rises... "The change in the threshold will have a serious impact on low income families" she said "A family with two children earning £10,000 a year could be £1,480 worse off." This despite George Osborne's promise to increase the minimum wage.
Meanwhile, the Government has also announced plans for a further `in-year' cut of an estimated £1.16million to Salford's Public Health budget, on top of cuts that have already seen Health Improvement funding slashed.
Assistant Mayor, Lisa Stone, told the meeting that 90% of the budget was already tied up in contracts, which would make "managing the in year cut basically impossible". She added that, if the cut was recurrent, £4.5million could be cut from Public Health by 2018-19. The Public Health budget covers services that aim for prevention of long term illnesses and the loss of such services would be "potentially life threatening".
Addressing the issues, Salford Mayor, Ian Stewart said "In year cuts may even indeed mean that it's impossible for us to budget and run a budget...I genuinely fear that we are coming close the tipping point when the salami slicing of services will be impossible, a tipping point where not only part of services but full services disappear completely."
There was no indication from the Mayor, or any Labour councillors, that the Council's cuts policies might change in line with the proposed policies of new Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn. The Mayor merely stated in today's meeting that the Council was "in correspondence with the Prime Minister and the Government on all of these issues" and that he would "continue to rage against the effects of those cumulative Government cuts at the highest level..."
Meanwhile, the Salford Star understands that lawyers representing a service user have been granted permission to bring an application for a judicial review of this year's cuts to the Health Improvement Service. The hearing has been listed for 27th November at the Manchester Civil Justice Centre.
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