How will Town Hall respond to orders to cut?

Published: 15 July, 2010

REDOLENT of  the mid-1980s, a protest meeting against the government’s stern budgetary cuts on Monday (see page 2) threw out a glimmer that turmoil may lie ahead.

But it is only a glimmer.

How will Camden Council react to economic strictures from on high?

We can assume funding cuts from Whitehall amount to a loss of £100million in the next four years.

But this is only an assumption.

By the next announcement in October, that may be seen as a low estimate.

The council will no doubt prune here and there – sharing services with neighbouring Labour-controlled authorities in, for instance, the provision of school meals and social care, cutting out the “middle-man” or consultants, sweeping away a great many expensive agency or “locum” staff, and persuading the public to order services through the internet.

All this will save millions.

But not enough to offset heavier cuts than presently predicted.

All enterprises facing a down-turn cut overheads by reducing staff.

Salaries can amount to around 20-25 per cent of overheads.

The annual cost of running the council is about £900million.

At present, Labour says it can reduce staff by cutting 270 posts, but this saving in salaries may amount to less than £10million.

More savage staffing cuts would be required to balance the budget.

David Cameron argues that great economies can be achieved by freezing salaries, raising the retirement age, and increasing the pension premium paid by staff, at present around 6-7 per cent, to 9 per cent.

All of this could result in an unprecedented level of  redundancies, as well as a decline in real salaries.

How far will the unions resist?

Given the state of trade unionism in Britain, this is problematic.

HOW much of a Freudian slip did the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley make on Monday in a Newsnight discussion when he described the Health Service as a “market”?

A market is where goods and services are exchanged for money.

The services the National Health  Service deliver to Britons are given free of charge.

They are paid for through our taxes.

Patients do not directly pay for  health treatment.

Salaries of GPs and hospital staff and other over­heads come from the Exchequer. Perhaps Mr Lansley already regards the NHS as a market place in the traditional sense of the word.