Council anger over £5m cuts

THE Government will controversially attempt to sneak a further £5 million in cuts from Oldham Council’s finance settlement.

The move will reduce the settlement by £1 million to £68.75 million for 2014/15 and another £4 million for 2015/16, dropping it to £48.62 million.

Councillor Abdul Jabbar, the council’s cabinet member for finance, hit out at the latest consultation on the Local Government Finance Settlement.

The council thought the Government was undertaking a technical consultation — only to discover it includes more cuts.

Councillor Jabbar said: “Not only are the funding reductions severe and additional, the lack of transparency is misleading and detrimental to the efforts made by local authorities to forward-plan.”

Tomorrow’s full council meeting will hear how the information was released during summer recess - and how councils had been led to believe Government funding plans had been fully revealed a month ago.

Councillor Jabbar added: “The Government has been trying to eradicate national debt by 2015, which we understand of course and we have taken that, alongside the cuts, on board.

“But we are concerned that this latest round of measures is being put to councils without any sort of debate.”

The Government is inviting comments on the consultation until October 2.

The council will discuss whether to ask chief executive Charlie Parker to write to the Chancellor urgently requesting reconsideration of more cuts — and asking for future announcements be made more transparently.