SNP Council puts forward service cuts proposals

At a meeting of West Dunbartonshire Council on Wednesday 20th December, the SNP Administration put forward their budget proposals for public consultation.

The SNP cuts proposals amount to £1,099,000 in 2018/19; £1,260,00 in 2019/20; and £1,260,000 in 2020/21.

As well as the council cuts, the SNP have also assumed that they will cut £1.56m from the Healthy & Social Care Partnership budget each year totalling an extra £4.68m over the period.

The SNP Council has also accepted Management Adjustments (Management Cuts) of £667,000 in 2018/19; £703,000 in 2019/20; and £705,000 in 2020/21.

The Council plans include a 4% increase in sales fees and charges.

A 3% Council Tax increase each year for the next three years.

Generating income through “Commercialization” which is expected to bring in £250,000 in 2018/19; an additional £500,000 in 2019/20; and a further £500,000 in 2020/21. (£1.25m in total).

The Council also plans to cut millions from departmental budgets over the three years as recurring savings as follows: £2.732m in 2018/19; £0.501m in 2019/20; and £2.333m in 2020/21.

As well as the above the SNP Council has already reduced the Care of Garden Scheme; deleted 8 Customer Care posts; approved the closure of the Alexandria Social Work office, and is planning to reduce library opening hours by 30%.

The Council has £13.118m of reserves including £8,054,645 of earmarked reserves including £1.972m which is earmarked for a trawl to cover the additional costs of reducing staff such as redundancy and strain on the pension fund. There is also a £1m underspend in the 2017/18 revenue account so there are more than enough resources to close the 2018/19 budget gap already.

Councillor Martin Rooney said: “The SNP Leader says he will oppose austerity but he is overseeing millions of pounds of cuts over the next three years, the majority of which will be left to council officers to make. The SNP are putting proposals out to public consultation when we all know that the Scottish Parliament will not allow the SNP budget to pass unchanged so we can expect additional resources before we set our budget in March.”   

A copy of the SNP budget cuts document is below.

I’ve attached the jobs to the SNP spreadsheet as they seem to have omitted these.

The highlighted parts are the SNP planned savings to close the 2018/19 budget gap.

The SNP intend to consult on all the other savings options as well so that it can either accept or reject the views of the public consultation.

snp-cuts-proposal

Below is a copy of the Management Adjustments. These are cuts that have already been taken and approved by the Administration but they can be reversed at the formal budget setting meeting in March 2018.

Item 11 – Copy of Budget Update Report Appendix 3

SNP led West Dunbartonshire Council to proceed with consultation on service cuts

Jackie Baillie – Labour 

Commenting on SNP-led West Dunbartonshire Council’s decision to proceed to public consultation in January on cuts to local services, Jackie Baillie MSP said:

“The SNP’s list of preferred cuts includes shameful plans to slash over £1 million from local services. Cutting school budgets by 10% will put even more pressure on local teachers who are already having to pay for resources out of their own pocket and increase inequality in schools in Dumbarton, Vale of Leven and Clydebank. Local residents will also be up in arms about the SNP administration’s plans to move from a fortnightly to three-weekly bin collection service.

“This comes on top of the so-called management adjustments agreed behind closed doors between senior SNP councillors and officers to cut £1.2 million from local services. These are just cuts by another name which will force schoolkids to clean their own classrooms, stop funding the out-of-hours noise complaints service and end free school milk at lunchtime.

“Austerity is a political choice. Instead of asking local residents to choose from a list of cuts, the SNP Council should join Labour in demanding a better deal from their paymasters in Edinburgh. Labour will fight the SNP’s turbo-charged austerity and demand fair funding for West Dunbartonshire Council from the Scottish Government.”

SHADOW SCOTTISH SECRETARY CALLS FOR REGULATOR AND GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION ON BANK CLOSURES

Today Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, Lesley Laird, wrote to the Financial Conduct Authority, the Bank of England, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Scottish Secretary outlining the Labour Party’s case for intervention on the closure of bank branches across Scotland.

Ms Laird called on FCA Chief executive Andrew Bailey and Sam Woods, the Bank of England Deputy Governor responsible for regulation, to take an active role in the interests of consumers and put these cumulative closures under scrutiny. She said:

“The time has come for a stronger input from a regulatory approach. The current processes have been exposed as being completely inadequate.

“In the interests of wider social and financial inclusion as well as wider community responsibility it is time for the regulators and the Government to get hands-on in dealing with these issues.

“It is not acceptable to leave communities in ‘banking deserts’ as a result of the cumulative impact of each bank taking closure decisions in isolation.”

Ms Laird also reminded Mr Hammond and Mr Mundell of taxpayers’ reasonable expectation that as the majority shareholder in RBS they must use their influence to oversee the closure programme. She added:

“I am gravely concerned about the lack of public scrutiny of this ongoing closure programme.

“While the bank trots out all sorts of press statements about footfall and online banking growth there appears to be a complete lack of recognition and disregard from RBS and other banks about their wider responsibility to society and their customers.

“In the case of RBS, it is not a purely commercial organisation. It is majority owned by the public and therefore there must, at the very least, be public scrutiny of their closure programme and its impact on the communities they serve.

 

“It is incompatible with public share ownership for the Government to simply wash their hands of their duty to oversee this nationally owned asset’s strategy in this regard.”

 

SCOTLAND NEEDS A GOVERNMENT WILLING TO STAND UP TO BIG BUSINESS

Scotland needs a government with an industrial strategy to drive growth, and be willing to stand up to big business to protect working people.

In the final First Minister’s Questions of 2017, Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard put the SNP’s poor economic record under the microscope.

Mr Leonard highlighted missed targets for economic performance, and the Scottish Fiscal Commission forecasting sluggish growth.

Mr Leonard also highlighted reports regarding the employment practices of Amazon.

This morning the Daily Record reported that Amazon delivery drivers are facing impossible targets and awful working conditions in the run up to Christmas.

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said:

“No matter how many times Ministers say it, the fundamentals of our economy are not strong.

“They are not resilient; they are weak. Research and Development has grown but it is far too narrow, with just ten businesses accounting for nearly 40 per cent of all of our business research and development.

“Our export base is far too narrow with just 15 businesses accounting for 30 per cent of all of our international exports.

“What the SNP’s economic record means is the loss of real jobs in the real world.

“It means the scandal of workers at Amazon being forced to meet unrealistic targets this Christmas to avoid cruel redundancy in the New Year.

“This is a company that the SNP has handed millions to. This is public money – the government should be laying down the rules.

“What Scotland’s economy needs and what the people of Scotland need is real and radical change, a government with an industrial strategy to boost sustainable growth, and a government prepared to stand up to big business.”

NOTES

‘Amazon drivers ‘can’t have lunch and pee in bottles’ as they are forced to deliver up to 240 parcels a day in lead-up to Christmas’ –http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/amazon-drivers-cant-lunch-pee-11730769

DEREK MACKAY ‘TIN EARED’ OVER COUNCIL CUTS

James Kelly – Labour 

Scottish Labour has accused Derek MacKay of being ‘tin-eared’ over council cuts after his appearance at the Local Government and Communities Committee this morning.

The Finance Secretary claimed he has treated councils ‘very fairly’ in the budget settlement, despite reducing local government funding at a higher proportion than the Scottish Government block grant.

Labour MSP Elaine Smith raised a letter sent to Mr MacKay by the chair of trade union UNISON’s local government committee, Mark Ferguson.

In the letter, the trade union condemned the real-terms cut to councils and asked the Finance Secretary to revise his announced spending plans to provide sufficient funding for local government.

At the same time as Mr Mackay’s appearance at the Local Government Committee, the Scottish Fiscal Commission appeared in front of the Finance Committee and confirmed their projections of lower than 1 per cent growth in the Scottish economy until 2021.

The SNP budget unravelled within days last week after it was revealed that the public sector pay rise will not apply to the 243,000 local government workers, who make up 43 per cent of public sector employees.

Scottish Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Finance, James Kelly said:

“Today’s appearance in front of the local government committee gave no absolutely no assurances to local government workers.

“How on earth councils are expected to fund a much-needed pay rise for their employees, while Derek MacKay is slashing their budgets is beyond reason.

“Meanwhile, the Scottish Fiscal Commission have confirmed their grim growth projections, with the Scottish economy under the SNP not set to see growth of above 1 per cent for the rest of the Parliament.

“When confronted with the effect his budget would have on councils, the Finance Secretary remained tin eared.

“It is time Derek MacKay listened to council leaders and council workers across Scotland and put an end to his brutal local government cuts.”

NOTES

Unison letter: http://unisoninverclyde.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Letter-18-Dec-2017-to-Cabinet-Secretary-for-Finance.pdf