Looked after children, kids' homes and respite centres, young people, lone parents and the sick and elderly are all in line for a huge cuts as Salford City Council proposes to slash £15.8million worth of services in the year from April 2016 to March 2017 and axe 133 Council posts. £4.5million of the those cuts will directly affect the old, the young and vulnerable*.
In the biggest slice of cuts hypocrisy, and as revealed last week, the Council intends to close The Grange to save £300,000 (see previous Salford Star article click here). In 2013 The Grange was operating almost on full capacity as a short term respite centre for children with disabilities.
After a bitter protest waged by parents, Salford City UNISON and anti-cuts campaigners, children using The Grange were shunted to Granville House, which was then an adult centre, while The Grange was to be used as a residential facility for children with long term complex needs.
The justification for this was that it would save the Council money by bringing back to Salford young people who were living outside the city. That massive misjudgement has now led to proposals to close The Grange completely, as it is, states the Council cuts report, "significantly under occupied".
It adds that there will be "no reduction in the level of service for children requiring specialist support" but doesn't say how this is possible, particularly when it is handing out voluntary redundancy offers to staff.
Meanwhile, back in 2013, many parents said they would not send their kids to Granville as they didn't deem it safe and now, lo and behold, the Council is not only shutting The Grange but slashing services at Granville to the tune of £100,000, stating "it has been under utilised for the last two years as families have chosen to use their personalised budgets for other alternatives that meet their needs better".
Also proposed to be slashed by £235,000 is the Council's contract for places at Highfield Children's Home "due to reduced numbers of looked after children requiring specialist residential care".
Children's services for `health and youth' are to be hammered by £450,000 worth of cuts in what the Council calls a "redesign" which, it adds, "will not have an impact on frontline services". Indeed, there are lots of cuts which the Council states will not "impact" services...
A £280,000 cut to `support functions' in Children's Services and `redesign' "will not impact on services". And a £135,000 cut to public health funding for `regulatory services' will "minimise impact on services to the public".
There's lots of "redesigns" too as well as the £280,000 `redesign' in Children's Services, there's a £112,000 `redesign' in tackling `community safety hotspots'; a £200,000 `redesign' of drug and alcohol services by merging Bolton, Trafford and Salford teams, and a £406,000 `redesign' of trading standards and environmental health via a "reduction of senior management and support staffing costs".
Residents will also be pleased to hear of a £1.2million `redesign' of human contact by "developing use of digital technology to transform and improve services", which includes "providing digital ways of applying for and delivering services across the Council". The Salford Star understands that there are already one thousand calls a week to the Council being `abandoned', without losing even more staff.
Elsewhere, the Council will be passing on £300,000 of increased fees and charges for services although it doesn't state which ones; slashing a further £93,000 from public health teams, and cutting £360,000 by merging the Being Well service and Skills and Work services, which help excluded Salford residents "achieve healthy lifestyles and increased employability". Targeted support to lone parents is also being slashed by ending a £51,000 contract and pushing it into a "Greater Manchester wide provision".
£50,000 will also be cut from the Salford Healthy Community contract which "targets groups to encourage health screening". This is just as well because £294,000 is also being slashed from the budget for health checks!
The word "efficiencies" pops up throughout the cuts list, most notably in relation to services for Older People and Disabilities, where a proposed £1.762million `efficiency' is proposed, via the creation of "the Integrated Care Organisation", pooling the budget for adult social care with the NHS. The Salford Star will have a lot more on this to follow in the New Year...
The Council is also rather pleased about a `saving' of £1.349million in its contract with Urban Vision, its joint venture company in which it holds a 19.9% stake. Capita Property and Infrastructure holds a 50.1% stake and Galliford Try Infrastructure holds a 30% stake...
For years, residents have been questioning what has been going on with Urban Vision, as the company's charges seem well over the top compared to other companies (see here). A Freedom of Information request by Salford Star last month revealed that "Salford City Council has not received a dividend payment from Urban Vision in the last 12 months".
In other words, Salford Council has been paying what seems over the odds for Urban Vision services, the company has been making profits and the Council has got nothing back, even though it owns 19.9% of that company. Now the Council is finally stating that, as part of its new contract with Urban Vision, it will "include a dividend". How much has been lost to the Council in the meantime is anyone's guess the Star will have a go at working it out in the New Year.
While Salford City Mayor, Paul Dennett, has rightly blamed the Tory Government for the cuts, what is strange is that cuts to the Council budgets are always made available to the public but where the money is actually spent, ie the revenue budget, is a closely guarded secret.
Is it right, for instance, for the Council to be lavishing £19million on the Royal Horticultural Garden in Worsley, including £9million to Peel Holdings? The Council would argue that this is taken from the `capital' budget but repayments on loans and interest is taken from the revenue budget which pays for services.
The Council boasts that 600 people took part in "Phase 1 of our budget consultation" (compared to less than 10 last year!) but nowhere in that consultation did it state it was proposing shutting disabled children's facilities, or anything else. Indeed less than a quarter of people, 115, made any comment on cuts, as the questions were so general.
The main `headlines' in the consultation report are that "Salford residents love the people of Salford, the friendliness and the sense of community in the city. They said that they love and value Salford's green spaces too along with the heritage and history of the city"...er, no brainer...
Meanwhile, there is a further kind-of consultation on the actual cuts, with people invited to come up with an alternative (The usual turkeys voting for Christmas scenario). It runs conveniently over the Christmas period until January 13th, and there will also be live consultation events through January**
For more details on all the cuts, the `consultation' and the response to the Phase 1 consultation see the Council's website click here
* There's no cuts to libraries, swimming pools, housing etc because all this has already been privatised.
**Consultation events...
Monday 16 January - 6pm to 7pm All Hallows High School
Tuesday 17 January - 1pm to 2pm Pendleton Gateway
Wednesday 18 January - 5pm to 6pm Eccles Gateway
Wednesday 18 January - 6pm to 7pm Beacon Centre
Monday 23 January - 3pm to 4pm St Paul's Peel Parish Community Hall
Tuesday 24 January - 3pm to 4pm Broughton Hub
Wednesday 25 January - 6pm to 7pm Ordsall Neighbourhood Centre
Thursday 26 January - 2pm to 3pm Walkden Gateway
Monday 30 January - 5pm to 6pm Irlam and Cadishead Leisure Centre
Tuesday 31 January - 11am to 12noon Swinton Gateway
Wednesday 1 February - 5pm to 6pm Salford Sports Village
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