Yesterday, Salford City Council announced £21.8million of cuts, including £120,000 slashed off transport for disabled children and well over £1million off public health improvement budgets (see previous Salford Star article – click here).
Today, Salford City UNISON branch secretary, Steven North, slated the Labour Council in light of the Party and Jeremy Corbyn's supposed anti-cuts agenda...
"The worst aspect of this is that, despite all of the changes in the Labour Party, when we've apparently got an anti-austerity Labour leadership and dozens of councillors saying they support Jeremy Corbyn's approach, we've still got a Labour Council in Salford proposing to make cuts that will absolutely impact on the most vulnerable people" he told the Salford Star
"We've got children's passenger transport being cut to ribbons, which has already produced a strong response from service users and carers, and we've got further attacks on health improvement despite the fact that the health of Salford's people has not dramatically improved by any measure" he added "It's incredibly disappointing. We shouldn't be cutting health improvement for people with dementia and health inequalities; we shouldn't be cutting disabled children's transport. This shouldn't be happening in 2016."
The other major concern the union has is for what is being called the `transformational' stuff in the new budget, which Salford Council states will save it £millions... £1.641million by making residents `self serve' online in a digital makeover, and £3.772million by `integrating' adult social care...
"We've got real concerns about all this but we don't really know yet" Steven said "It's about how it's managed and whether the Council is genuinely going to consult with communities and involve people, and only make decisions when things can be proven to work. And if they can't be shown to work they should stop them."
Salford Council has already stated that the `digital transformation programme' will lead to the loss of 120 posts (see here) and UNISON will push for industrial action should any staff lose their jobs...
"Clearly if there are any compulsory redundancies, as we've always said, we will ballot our members for strike action" Steven insisted "However if it can be shown that those 120 people are better being re-deployed into front line services elsewhere and that their terms and conditions are retained, it isn't something that we'd have a problem with. We'll have to see how that goes.
"Time will tell whether the Council is being creative with the money it's got" he concluded "or whether it's pretending to be innovative and creative while making Tory cuts..."
The Council intends to pass all the cuts at its February meeting, and the community has until 29th January to comment on the proposals. For the full details of the cuts and the Council's consultation – click here
* See also previous Salford Star article - The Jeremy Corbyn Effect on Salford Labour Council - click here
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