Hackney Mayor speaks out over government’s Comprehensive Spending Review
Hackney's elected mayor, Jules Pipe
At yesterday evening’s full council meeting (Wednesday 27 October), Hackney’s elected Mayor, Jules Pipe revealed the full impact the government’s Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) could have on the provision of services to the borough’s residents.
In the light of more details following last week’s CSR announcement, it appears that the majority of funding cuts from central government to Hackney Council will be made next year, rather than being spread evenly over four years as initially indicated.
The council says that if correct, this could mean a reduction in government funding of between £50 and £60million in the coming financial year (2011/12).
Speaking at the full council meeting, Mayor Pipe said: “The detail behind last week’s government announcement suggests that the grant cuts aren’t spread across four years, but have been frontloaded to take out between £50 and £60million in the first year. This means a reduction of around 20 per cent in the first year, not the 7.25 per cent stated by the government. Unless there are further funding streams that are still to be revealed by the government to make up this shortfall, the council will be faced with having to make devastating decisions.
“Extra grant funding has been given to areas like ours in the past for good reason, but we will now see reductions in grant of more than twice the national average.
“I will be continuing to work to minimise the impact of these cuts on our residents, and the protection of frontline services will remain our priority. I will be lobbying government and working with colleagues in other authorities to ensure that the most deprived areas are treated more fairly.”
In the lead up to the chancellor’s announcement, Hackney Council says it had successfully found savings of some £26million, some 6-7 per cent of its budget, to be ready for the coalition government’s reduction to next year’s local authority grants. Having identified this amount of saving already would have meant that the council had bought itself a 12-month breathing space to avoid snap front-line service reductions.
Last Wednesday, the prime minister, the chancellor, and the secretary of state – in writing to all council leaders – all confirmed that the average loss in real terms to local authorities would be around 7 per cent each year.
Hackney LBC 2009/2010 budget was £1,158,000,000 so 7% is £81,000,000. Divide this by 3 years is £27,000,000 or 4 years is £20,300,000. Doubling this first reduction to £60,000,000 for 2011/12 is going to mean brutal decisions are going to be made and not simply libraries closing and swimming pools not being reopened.
I wonder will Mr Pipe and Hackney Labour put up any real resistance to the Con/Dem cuts or will they make a few feeble noises before rolling over collaborating and administering the pain to Hackney’s most vulnerable?
The Membership of Hackney Labour fought the last General Election here, in Islington South & Finsbury, Enfield North, Westminster North, Brent South, Barking, Eltham, Tooting, Tottenham, Walthamstow, Bethnal Green & Bow, Poplar and Limehouse, Feltham and Heston, and even South Dorset. These are just the ones I know about and I am certain that there were more campaigns right across the UK and Northern Ireland that without fanfare Hackney Labour were well represented by its active, serious, and campaigning elected Representatives and private Members. Between elections we don’t go to sleep and suspend putting up ‘real resistance’ but I am always looking for new ways to oppose the Tories so tell me what you have in mind.
Here are the details. Most of the sections 5.3 – 5.8 are just guesses, which is always the worst way to treat people:
http://mginternet.hackney.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=11391
The bottom line is in 5.8.
This is being presented in public at G&R next Tuesday:
http://mginternet.hackney.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=120&MId=1311
Tranche 2 savings are detailed here:
http://mginternet.hackney.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=11392
And the rotten policies on welfare benefits are detailed here, for example, the capping household benefit payments at £500 per week for couple and lone parent households and around £350 per week for single adult households from 2013 will potentially affect 850 Hackneyites, almost all Tory voters and their children, adults with special needs, and elderly family members:
http://mginternet.hackney.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=11390
Glad to see the cutbacks on these money wasters. See enough of the council workers at the local pub after work well 4.30 pm for them sipping on cocktails !!! Those days are soon to be long gone … End the gravy train
How dare someone go to the pub! Prick.
Yes, well said, Adam. However, despite what the Terrorist seems to think, these cuts are clearly not about dispossessing Hackney council’s upper echelons of their cocktails. The likes of Pipe will get away scot free, while all the political parties do their bit to grind down the living standards of the majority of people in Hackney – especially the poor.
New Labour is well versed in this and its own administration demonstrated how happy they were to attack benefits and services while in power.
We need a collective response to this massive cut, because this is an attack by the rich on the poor, by the servants of a crisis-raddled capitalism on those it exploits and/or consigns to a life of increasingly precarious subsistence. The crisis itself is not the issue, however, since for politicians it only serves to legitimate yet another Hackney state of emergency (there’s one every couple of years).
While the supposed rationale of the cuts nationally is as incredible as a solution to a deep seated capitalist crisis as is the (simultaneous, and contradictory) policy of printing more money, the cuts should be opposed for what they are – an attack on the lives of the majority of those living here.
Together perhaps we can stop some of what they have lined up, but it will mean acting together and without the mediation of New Labour and other proven antagonists of the poor in Hackney.
What is going to be cut, and how do we, together, stop the council from pushing through the further demolition of services and benefits? We need to find out and find ways to act in concert against this attack. This means – for example – supporting each other in our struggles, as people have been supporting the fire brigade in their strike.
Rather than demanding cuts from supposed fat cats or cocktail drinkers we should refuse to let the Council as an institution attack the already depleted resources of the area. Then we’ll have a good reason to go down the pub and celebrate, not just drown our sorrows!
When the public are paying their worker … their worker should not be in the pub !!! If there not in the pub they are hanging out in the coffee shop talking trash to each other … It took these lazy workers 6 months to change a number 2 to the letter B in my address. I was left in a public sector administrative loop … Fed up with these lazy fools !!!
p.s. i will be glad to rid Hackney of some of the many free loaders … There are plenty of jobs people are just too darn lazy and would rather claim housing benefit and get a whole flat than work and live in a house share … Time to stop mollycoddling people … We all have personal responsibility to look after our selves … This shouldnt be outsourced to a welfare state …
@Adam just because my opinions differ to yours does not make me a ‘prick’ . Are you one of the many new Hackneyites sporting skinny jeans and ray ban shades ? I miss the hackney of old where these vultures we’re located in the previous ‘trendy’ postcode …
@GouldTerrorist – No. I cannot fit into skinny jeans. And I wear glasses, so I can’t really wear sunglasses at the same time.
You’re a prick nonetheless. Not because we share different opinions, but because you’re the kind of person who sees a council worker at the pub and assumes he/she is bunking off work.
@adam lol … do you work for the council ? have i touched a nerve … don’t worry council workers will soon be able to sit in the pub all day with all the other wasters ….
No, I work for a charity. Do you work, or do you sit in the pub in the middle of the day and complain about others who follow suit?
Two members of the public, one Cllr not a Commission member, and a volunteer journalist from this Citizen. Not the most impressive show of concern by Hackneyites, especially from its political commentators. Derision comes from somewhere and when somebody carps on about the poor efforts of others on this site and I have a pop, just know that I turned out at the public forum discussing these wicked cuts, and they didn’t. To few zealots to many dilettantes; those who claim an area of interest without real commitment or knowledge.