OAP beds and child protection to be hit by council cuts (From Bucks Free Press)

OAP beds and child protection to be hit by Buckinghamshire County Council cuts

4:07pm Wednesday 28th July 2010 in News By Oliver Evans

OAP beds and child protection to be hit by council cuts

BEDS and home help for older people will be cut and work to protect at risk children will be slashed under council savings announced today.

Buckinghamshire County Council today released details of an urgent £9.2m worth of cuts needed to balance the books this year.

Bosses blamed bankers and Labour’s ‘debt mountain’ – but a union said they went too far.

There will be cuts in:

• Domiciliary care in the home for OAPs.

• Domestic violence funding for women and children (25 per cent cut).

• Connexions careers service for ‘disaffected’ young people (19 per cent).

• ‘Preventative’ work to help at risk children.

• Beds for pensioners’ residential care.

• A fund for library books.

• Alcohol treatment services.

• Number of council contact centre staff to take calls.

• School bus services.

The department taking the biggest hit is Children and Young People, set to make £5.4m of savings.

A massive increase in costs for the department as a result of the Baby P scandal has been cited as a key reason for the cut backs.

A further £1.2m is to be found from council reserves to fund this.

It said not filling empty posts and using agency workers for at risk children will ‘reduce our capacity to manage high level preventative work’.

A £226,000 reduction will reduce ‘our capacity to manage the assessment process of children in need’.

Its ability to ‘monitor and develop learning opportunities for young people’ will also be hit, the savings list said (see link, bottom of story, for full list).

Driving lessons, university fees and ‘birthday and Christmas allowances’ for youngsters leaving care will also be cut by £50,000.

The second biggest chunk will come out of transportation, £2m. This will see £362,000 slashed from road safety work.

This has increased by £106,000 after a proposal to cut the roads maintenance budget was not taken up. The county’s roads are still damaged from December and January’s snow.

‘Local areas newsletters’ will be axed as part of £17,000 worth of savings.

The savings come as a result of funding cuts by the coalition Government and a surge in demand for some services.

The council’s revenue budget is £303m and the cuts come on top of a bid to save £52m over four years.

More are expected when a major review of Government spending is announced in October.

Announcing the cuts on Monday, Council leader Councillor David Shakespeare said: “Many of these we would rather not have to consider doing and it may well be, in the longer term process of normal budget making, that we would seek to reverse some.”

The Conservative said: “We are faced with having to pay back Labour’s debt mountain and there is not escape from that.

“Someone said ‘is it fair that local Government and the council taxpayer has to pick up it’s part of the pain because of the banks?’ “The answer is ‘no, it isn’t fair, but unfortunately that is what we have to live with’.”

Penny Gray, spokesman for the BCC Unison union branch, said: “We are disappointed that this Con-Dem Government have decided to take this stance.

“The people who work for local authorities, the librarians, the support workers and admin workers, they haven’t caused this massive deficit.

“It is the bankers and we have to bear the brunt of it.”

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