Front-line cuts unavoidable

Published: 10 March, 2011

• YOUR editorial about Camden Labour’s position on the budget was unfair and inaccurate. 

You state: “One cannot help but think that the Labour councillors as a group did not give sufficient thought to how best to react to the government’s cuts” yet you fail to identify any other sensible alternative.  

This leads me to question whether you actually read Labour’s budget before putting pen to paper and urging us, bizarrely, to side with late-minute Tory and Lib Dem proposals. I suspect not.

We desperately did not want to have to make the decisions that we did on budget night. This budget was the worst Camden has faced in its history and it is wishful thinking that anyone could come up with a budget which would make everyone happy. Facing a budget deficit of the equivalent of 33 per cent on council tax this year, and an extra £400million in capital repairs (mainly schools losing out from BSF) the room for manoeuvre, like all other councils, was very limited indeed.

Camden does not have large uncommitted reserves to save services unless we move money from school repairs to plug revenue deficits: a very unwise move in my book. Local government rules mean councillors have to set a legal budget. The consequences of not doing so would mean (a) non-collection of council tax, and services having to be cut back further; (b) officers then setting the budget. Nor could we just mothball some services hoping for a change in government at some stage – this is the first year in six years of government cuts – as the Coalition tries to clear the decks as quickly as possible without regard to the consequences. Nor still could we raise council tax: the government has capped council tax at 3.5 per cent this year (and probably next) – besides, the view from most people I have talked to points to efforts being made to reduce Town Hall costs first before raising taxes. 

So Camden’s plan will first be to reduce Town Hall costs before raising taxes. Top pay will be reduced by 17 per cent, we will restructure 970 posts and move more services online. This will save some money (£23million this year) but the deep cuts we are required to make this year alone (£35million) mean that front-line cuts are unavoidable.

You neglect to mention that Camden has maintained funding in excess of other boroughs, for care needs for older people, youth work, childcare, anti-social behaviour prevention and the voluntary sector.

We are open to all sort of ideas to help us protect services, and we are looking very deeply at how to cushion the blow of government cuts on various services right now. The fact is that the Lib Dem amendment could not be accepted because they forgot about our capital deficit (and therefore would have undermined our school modernisation programme) and the Tory amendment imposed the level of cuts to public servants only the Governor of Wisconsin would be proud of.

You also cite the government’s proposal to look at relocalising business rates as some form of cavalry coming over the hill to save us all. 

I’ll believe that when I see it, given Eric Pickles’s incessant attacks on councils, Camden and public service as a whole.  

No recommendations are planned until 2014, well after this round of cuts. I question why the government chose to put this announcement out in the week councils were setting budgets – perhaps, it was to distract attention from how these cuts were too deep, and “front-loaded” away from the election so councils like ours were forced to localise the pain early. I fear you fell for that too. 

Our door is open to anyone with ideas to help us through this, but to accuse us of not giving consideration to other ideas is a historically low blow from the New Journal and a sign, perhaps, of how your editorial betrays a lack of engagement with just how deep the cuts have been from this government.

CLLR THEO BLACKWELL
Cabinet Member for Finance