Public respond to Telford & Wrekin Council budget consultation
A record number of views from the public have been received on Telford & Wrekin Council’s budget proposals.
The Council has consulted on its draft budget proposals that outline how the Council will close a £40 million funding gap by 2014.
This follows unprecedented cuts in government grant which has left councils facing a threefold cut in budgets compared with the average for government departments.
The consultation on Telford & Wrekin’s draft budget, its most challenging ever, attracted 2,840 comments from the public, while the Council has also received more than 1,000 suggestions from people on ways that it can save money. In contrast, the Council’s 2011/2 budget consultation attracted around 900 responses.
This shows how residents have responded to the Council’s commitment, as a Co-operative Council, to involve people as widely as possible in its decision making and to listen to their views.
The consultation sought views on a range of savings proposals which will help it to make around £20 million pounds in savings in the next year towards its £40 million gap.
The Council also asked people for their views on what to do with Council tax – whether this should be frozen or increased. All Councils have been offered a one year grant by Government to freeze council tax equivalent to a 2.5% increase in council tax next year.
If this grant is accepted, Telford & Wrekin has highlighted that this would create a financial blackhole, leaving the Council needing to find an extra £1.4 million in every subsequent year. This could be met only by bigger increases in council tax, which may be limited by the Government or by even deeper cuts to services.
The consultation asked, in both online and paper surveys and in its Your Voice publication sent to homes across the borough, what the public’s preferred option for council tax were (results in bold based on almost 2,300 responses on Council tax ).
Option 1 - accept the Government’s grant and freeze council tax next year. –37% in favour
Option 2 - decline the one off grant and increase council tax by 41p per week (2.5%) for the average property (Band B) – 37% in favour
Option 3 - decline the one off grant and increase tax by 58p per week (3.5%) for the average property (Band B) – 26% in favour.
Other key findings of the consultation were:
· The proposed cuts most supported include a street lighting efficiency programme, increasing independent travel and removing concessions on golf for all groups.
· People were also supportive of the Council’s proposals for Children and Family Services, Adult Services and Environmental Services
· The proposed cuts least supported include an annual increase in Council owned car park charges in Ironbridge and Telford Town Centre. However 86% of spaces (more than 2,000) in council car parks in the borough remain free to use. Many comments were also made about the Council’s proposal for a charged residents’ scheme for using car parks in Ironbridge.
The Council will publish its response to the consultation tomorrow afternoon (February 15) together with its proposals for Council tax which will be considered by the Cabinet on February 23 and decided by Full Council on March 1.
Its initial budget, published in December, proposed nearly £9 million in cuts to services to help it meet the savings that it must find, while protecting as far as possible front line services through further cuts to senior management, better procurement and more efficient ways of working. Next year, £8.2 million in savings will come from staff budgets, rising to a total of £17 million by 2014.
From summer 2011, the Council also spoke to more than 3,000 people in the borough to help it decide what its priorities should be.
Cllr Bill McClements, cabinet member for Resources and Service Delivery, said: “A cornerstone of being a Co-operative Council is that we will seek and involve people in the decisions that we make.
“The budget challenge we face is perhaps the single most important issue for the Council and I am delighted that a record number of people have got involved to help us make the very difficult decisions that we face.
“Our thanks goes to everyone who took the trouble and time to give us their views on the consultation.
“We look forward to continuing to build on this good start and involving people in more aspects of decision making because that is one of the fundamental values of a co-operative council.”
