Life’s about to get whole lot tougher

Council’s budget comes under three-hour scrutiny

OLDHAM has a tough choice, hard-decision budget that will affect everyone in the borough, councillors said last night.

An intense, three hour-plus debate shone the spotlight on swingeing cuts affecting every council department.

Councillors with portfolio responsibilities joined officers to be grilled on proposed cuts by members of the Overview and Scrutiny Performance and Value for Money Select Committee.

They faced a barrage of questions as members bemoaned a “disappointing and frustrating” settlement which saw them seeking reassurance that the far-reaching cuts would have a limited effect on front-line services and the borough’s most vulnerable people.

Fears for services in every single council department were voiced, but the answer was broadly the same — tough decisions and unavoidable cuts.

Concessions came for very few issues, but they did include council house rents and weekend burials.

Councillor Abdul Jabbar said a proposed 6.4 per cent rent rise for tenants would hit the poorest hardest and was too high in the current financial climate.

Accountant Barry Shin said that the council was hamstrung: “The Government will take the rent off us whether we charge it or not,” he said.

The £500 cost of weekend burials sparked debate about the unfairness of the charge for faiths which have “no choice” but to bury their dead quickly.

Both issues will get further review ahead of the next committee meeting.

Council leader Howard Sykes said the level of cuts and their speed had forced drastic action, but pledged frontline services would be preserved wherever possible.

He said: “If we can’t build for the future we may as well switch the lights off, pack up and go home.

“The budget is not just about reductions, it is about building for the future, value for money, improving education and schools and investing in key infrastructure.

“Only this week there was the ground-breaking for both the new Oasis Academy and Oldham’s new youth centre, Mahdlo. Things are happening here in Oldham.”

He added: “We have attempted to protect or maintain the things we think are important to people’s everyday lives, such as keeping the borough clean, safe, litter-free and lit. We have not increased car parking charges nor market rents and not reduced council training and apprenticeships.

“It is not all sack cloth and ashes, but it is not the picture we would have like.”

The hard-hitting exercise will see 500 redundancies, including a potential 200 compulsory.

Ten senior management posts will go from 65, saving around £1 million, or 16 per cent of senior management costs.

Fears were voiced that a 45 per cent cut in the capital budget over the next four years will hinder regeneration, and concern came for many areas including services to support vulnerable adults, children and carers, schools, community cohesion, vermin control and youth services.

Councillor Jackie Stanton said care packages would not be cut, but warned there would be “huge changes” to the way services were delivered, including a shift from council-provided services to cheaper private-sector services.

A potential one-week cut in respite care giving carers a break, to a maximum of seven weeks, was criticised as the the loss of a lifeline for people struggling to cope although Councillor Stanton said the measure would only be used as “an absolute last resort”.