Overview of savings, cuts, increased charges in 2012-13 budget

Having summarised the savings (a mixture of cuts, 'efficiencies' and increased charging) in Children and Families Services which amounted to £3,216,000 I now turn to other service areas. Note some relatively minor items are not included but totals are for ALL savings within a department.

ADULT SOCIAL CARE 
Brent Council's favourite word 'Transformation' comes up here in changes to commissioning and procurement through redesign of services giving a saving of £1,223k, by far the largest amount. Changes in transport eligibility 'encouraging independent travel to day care provision' will save £43k, stooping paying Inner London weighting £108k. Closure of day services for learning disabilities and consolidation into John Billam Resource Centre and redesign of the service model will save £433k and commissioning via Phase 1 of the One Council programme a further £402k. Alongside other savings these amount to £2,613,000 with a further £2,200,000 expected in 2013-14 through integration with NHS services although the report notes 'any 'costs resulting are currently not known).

These headings are not very specific and we can expect the details of what they mean on the ground to only emerge on implementation. A key issue will be consultation and whether it will have any effect if the budget has already been agreed.


Total Savings 2012-13: £2,613,000


ENVIRONMENT AND NEIGHBOURHOOD SERVICES
The largest item here is £1,357k for Waste and Recycling through a number of factors including renegotiation with Veolia, increased use of the Seneca (Careys) Materials Recycling Facility and reduction in waste disposal costs with increased diversion from landfill. In addition further savings are anticipated in 2014-15 following retendering of the waste management and street cleansing contract currently held by Veolia.
Reductions in highways maintenance will save £100k, maintenance of Vale Farm £25k (but the Council may have to pay money to bring it up to standard for a new contractor).

'The full effects of  2011/12 saving' on libraries is put at £408k.

The possibility of parks service privatisation appears under the heading of Grounds Maintenance with a reduction in the level of grounds maintenance in parks and open spaces and a promise to 'review options fort delivering grounds maintenance int he future'. This gives a saving of £200k in 2012-13 and £100k in 2013-14. A re-organisation of Transport Services will net £100m and not filling school crossing patrol vacancies £30k this year and £40k for the next two years. Retendering process produced a saving of £75k on street trees with 'no loss of service' and cost saving on the parking contract is put at £200k this year and £300k next. Reductions in management and staff restructuring produces savings of £183k and even the dead don't escape with increased fees for cemeteries alongside sports facilities and parks £40k. (Listed in Appendix D(vi) )

Total Savings 2012-13: £3,259,000 

REGENERATION AND MAJOR PROJECTS 
'Transformation' rears its head again under 'One Council Housing Needs Transformation Project. There is no detail but it gives savings of £1,670k in 2012-13 and another £1,310k in 2013-14. Similarly changes in 'Supporting People' budget produces savings of £900k 2012-13 and another £900k in 2013-14. There is a claim that prices for contracts can be reduced with 'significant impact on users' and that tjhis will be achieved through 'closing under utilised and unpopular shared houses or reducing the number supported through floating support'. Savings of £530m are suggested for a property review: 'getting out of buildings early' which I presume is linked to the Civic Centre.

There are many other items under this heading but the main ones are included above:

Total Savings 2012-13: £1,781,000 (2013-14 £2,440,000)

FINANCE AND CORPORATE/CENTRAL SERVICES
Full year effect of 2011-12 savings through staffing and structure review £269k
Full year effect of ending Inner London Weighting £54k
Savings in human resources through London project Athena £100k 2013-14 £260k
Reorganisation of Customer Services (Finance and Corporate) £300k
Reorganisation of Customer Services (Community and Customer Engagement) £66k
Reduced running costs of Chief Executive's Office £25k

Total Savings 2012-12: £855,000

In addition savings of £1,000k are indicated in 2013-14 and 2014-15 for review of business costs in moving to the Civic Centre

CENTRAL ITEMS 
ONE COUNCIL PROGRAMME
Employee Benefits Project  (savings allocated to service areas) £255k
Future Customer Services £150k 2013-14 £149k
Rents and Services Charges (savings allocated to service areas) £229k
Fundamental Review of Youth Service £100

Total Savings 2012-13: £734,000

In addition savings are indicated for future years:
Civic Centre 2013-14 £2,000k, 2014-15 £1,000K, 2014-15 £500k
Reduced contract prices 2013-14 £750k, 2014-15 £750k, 2015-16 £500k
Increased contract compliance  - ditto-

If any readers can shed light on the impact of any of the above I would be happy to publish your comments.

Burying Brent Council at the Wembley Consultative Forum

In what at times seemed to be a valediction for Brent Council, Cllr Ann John told the Wembley Area Consultative Forum, that by 2014 the Council would be much smaller. It would have withdrawn from the provision of many services, schools would be out of local authority control and school services would be greatly reduced or have gone completely. In what she said was a 'bleak picture' she said the Housing Benefit Cap would move many families out of the area.

In reviewing the cooperative arrangements with other West London boroughs through the West London Alliance, she said that this opened the way for some to press for much bigger local authorities, a London Borough of West London, which would put local democracy as we know it at risk in the future.

There will be a further £14m cuts in the next financial year following the £42m this year. 540 council jobs have gone in the last 18 months. Ann John said that although the Budget Report had said that the freeze in Council Tax was undermining the long-term council finances but Labour had a manifesto commitment to keep it low and no London borough planned an increase. There were signs that attitudes may be changing with some Tory councils in revolt.

Challenged from the floor that given the Coalition cuts the Council was not able to deliver the services required by Brent residents and that the Council needed to campaign against the Coalition, she gave the example of cuts in the popular park warden services. She said that this contributed to children's and women's safety and had led to an increased use of parks but it was an optional rather than core service and so had been cut. She said that we needed a groundswell of opinion  to approach the government.

Asked about whether the new Civic Centre was now too large for the much diminished Brent workforce she said that it was much more than office space for council bureaucrats and would provide library, arts and retail space.

Budget discussion at Area Forums tonight and tomorrow

Ann John, leader of Brent Council and Muhammed Butt, deputy leader and lead member for resources, will be speaking on the 2012-13 budget at Area Consultative Forums this evening and tomorrow. Their appearance takes place against the background of Labour's U-turn on cuts, the council's determination to 'consider all options' including privatisation, the Audit Commission's strictures on council reserves and the likely shrinking of the council to offer only the minimum of statutory public services.

The Wembley Forum is this evening at Patidar House, 22 London Road (off Wembley High Road) at 7pm and the Willesden Forum tomorrow at the College of North West London, Denzil Road, NW10

You can speak at the Forums on budgets, Willesden Green Library Redevelopment, Willesden Bookshop, street litter or any other relevant topic. Get there early and fill in a Soapbox Form or book on-line LINK You will get 3/5 minutes to speak early on the agenda.

Have your say on Brent council budget starting next week

Brent Area Consultative Forums start again next week. Council leaders will be presenting their budget proposals which will inevitably involve more cuts. It will be a chance to ask questions or make suggestions and you can also do a Soap Box presentation at the beginning of the session - get there early to fill in a form or do so on line. You will have a maximum of 3 minutes to present your case. Soapbox details and forms HERE .

The first Forum is in Harlesden on Tuesday 10th January.

Full details HERE

Doing the Coalition's Dirty Work?

An improvement in Brent Council's collection rate for 2011-12, partly due to more people using direct debits, means that it will have a surplus of £1m on its collection account at the end of this financial year. Last year there was a loss of £1.3m at the end of the financial year. Brent's share of the £1m  surplus will be £776,000 which can be used for services that otherwise would have had to be cut.

Meanwhile I look forward to hearing how the Council is intending to consult on this year's budget. Its Report tabled at the November 21st Council meeting stated:

Late December: Consultation with residents, businesses, voluntary sector, partner agencies and trade unions on budget proposals.

As I have suggested previously it would be much better if the Council worked with local people to construct a 'needs budget' that would set out what the Council needs to provide effective services for the people of Brent. This could then be used as a campaigning tool to bring councillors and citizens together.

It was interesting to read the comment in last week's New Statesman by Sally Gimson.  Gimson won the Highgate by-election for  Labour  two and a half months ago again despite a strong showing by the Greens. She wrote:

We have been elected by the people of Camden to protect them against the worst of Tory/Lib Dem excesses, but I wonder now I've got here whether we may just be forced to do their dirty work.

Exactly!

The Schools Forum will tonight be agreeing funding principles and discussing budget issues against the background of more schools considering academy conversion.

Brent's 'Bad News' Budget Report

The first report outlining the pressures on the Council budget for 2012-13 and beyond makes for sober reading. There is a projected over-spend for this year of £1.8m which the Council  will try and eliminate without resorting to using its reserves.If it used reserves they would reduce to £8.3m which would be below the Council's target.

In her preamble to the report Labour Council Ann John notes:

The Council has over the last year been forced to take a number of difficult decisions as to which services to support and improve and which to discontinue or limit. There have been some predictable high profile instances where citizens have objected to the curtailment of a service they particularly value. This is understandable; this Administration did not seek election on a platform of massive cuts. However the front-loaded 26% target set by Government over the life of the Spending Review means that major cuts in services are inevitable and as the size of the Council organisation will shrink, the content of what it does will also inevitably be curtailed.

Based on savings being achieved mainly through the 'One Council programme, the containment of 'inescapable growth' through a £5m annual contingency, savings already in the pipeline from previous decisions, and no rise in council tax this would leave a budget gap of:

2012-13 £4.4m
2013-14 £6.4m
2014-15 £22.5m
1015-16 £16.1m

A rise in Council Tax of 2.5% would reduce the gap in subsequent years:

2012-14 £4.4m
2013-14 £1.1m
2014-15 £19.7m
2015-16 £13.1m

The Council receives an annual grant of £2.6m if they do not increase Council Tax and this year only will receive an additional one-off grant of another £2.6m. Given the figures for 2012-13 this raises the possibility of raising Council Tax, even with the loss of £2.6m to protect services. The report warns that a failure to raise Council Tax over a number of years will erode the Council's underlying revenue position i the long term.

The Council expects a reduction in the formula grant received from central government of £13.1m in 2012-13 and a further £13,4m by 2014-15.

The report outlines the pressures on Council finances for 2012-13 these include:

• Grant reductions for housing benefit administration, social care training and unaccompanied asylum seekers
• The number of young people transitioning into Adult Social Care
• Contract prices rises in Environment and Neighbourhood Services
• Increase in cost of providing temporary accommodation when the housing benefit cap is implemented.

The report notes a further pressure arising from the increased cost of borrowing for capital projects when revenue funding sources are reducing. This means that interest costs are taking up an increasing share of total revenue resources. If the Council decides to reduce borrowing to close the budget gap there would have to be a reduction in the capital programme or the Council would need to find alternative sources of funding, presumably a difficult job in the current economic situation.

There are two further ring-fenced budgets. The report notes that there is potential for the ring-fenced Central Education Budget to lose significant amounts of money as a result of schools converting to academy status. They estimate this as up to £900,000 per secondary school.

The Housing Revenue Account (HRA) grant which provides government subsidy for rents will be phased out in 2012-13 and the HRA will be expected to be self-funding henceforth. There will be a one-off settlement in lieu of an ongoing subsidy of around £185m (to be confirmed) against an annual subsidy of £8.5m. Implementing government policy of convergence of council rents and those of social landlords 'implies a 7% rise' in council rents for 2012-13.

With room for manoeuvre  tight if the Council decides to implement Coalition cuts there is likely to be a rise in the costs of  Council services as well as further cuts in provision.

Cllr John sets out these proposals in her preamble to the report:

• That by the time of budget in February we bring forward a package of measures, with other public, private and voluntary sector partners to address the acute issues of employment and employability which face so many of our fellow citizens;
• That we take another look at the services and quality of life that people can expect in their neighbourhoods. It was our 2002-6 Administration that brought in the successful and popular policy of Ward Working; and it is now time to look again at neighbourhoods in a practical and meaningful way and to set out a coherent set of actions which is a Brent rather than Central Government approach to localism;
• That we concentrate on producing proposals that offers a comprehensive and targeted approach to working with young people and youth;
• That we pursue vigorously the integration of social care and NHS health services to provide a better, seamless and more focused set of services provided to local people and use the transfer of Public Health to Local Government control to make a reality of a concentration on prevention;
• That we work even harder to bring forward the regeneration of our Borough and adopt a strategy for our property which makes it integral to the economic renewal of Brent.

There is little space for this on the budget timetable set by the Council but it does include for late December: 'Consultation with residents, businesses, voluntary sector, partner agencies and trade unions on budget proposals'. This could be widened to include the whole community.  In January 2012 members are due to agree the proposals to go to the February Executive so timing is very tight.

Upcoming Brent Executive Decisions

Somewhat surprisingly, given the need for proper scrutiny of Executive decisions, the Call In and Scrutiny Overview Committee due to be held this evening has been cancelled.

The Executive meets again on November 14th and the most controversial item is likely to be consideration of options for the redevelopment of the Willesden Green Library Centre site. No details of proposals are available as yet but I will try to publish them as soon as possible. There has been only internal council  consultation on this so far. Redevelopment would mean the closure of the library for at least two years and thus will add to the impact of the recent closures of  six of the borough's 12 libraries.

There may be organised protests by dog walkers against the Dog Control Orders due to be approved that night. Dog walkers will be limited to a maximum of six dogs per person. Dogs will be excluded from playgrounds, multi-use games areas, tennis and netball courts and bowling greens. Other areas will be specified where dogs must be kept on a lead. (See my earlier post LINK)

The Executive will be asked to approve the awarding of a Design and Build Contract to rebuild the Girls' and Boys Crest Academies and a joint procurement of council Human Resources through the Oracle system led by Lewisham and Lambeth.  This aims to rationalise back office support systems within London's local councils.

The December 12th Executive will be presented with the Quarter 2 2011/12 - Performance and Finance review which may have repercussions for spending for the remainder of this financial year. The same meeting will consider alterations in fees and charges for council services,  The most controversial decision at the January 16th 2011 meeting will be over the future of children's centre childcare provision.

Brent's 4 Year Budget Strategy Agreed in 30 seconds

Councillor Butt summed up the 2012/13 to 2015/16 budget strategy up in one sentence, no one wanted to speak on it, and it was approved - all within 30 seconds. The budget envisages cumulative 'savings' of £67.5m by 2016. That works out as over £2m per second!

There was a much longer discussion over the Festivals and Events issue. Cllr Ann John said she had been in talks with the Hindu council who no longer wanted to speak. She claimed that the policy had to change because of new Equality legislation which meant that the events funded had to be inclusive and this ruled out financing religious festivals. Cllr Paul Lorber challenged this saying that Festivals such as Eid had always been open to people of all backgrounds and were designed to aid understanding and improve relations amongst Brent's diverse communities. He queried the funding of fireworks night in the context of the gunpowder plot, oppression of Catholics and the events celebration of a protestant victory. Cllr Ann John said that this festival would continue to be funded on health and safety grounds, not religious, because it prevented people being injured by providing an alternative to setting off fireworks in back gardens.

Cllr John  insisted that this year's festivals including Eid, Navaratri,Christmas lights and St Patrick's Day would still take place but the new policy would be implemented next financial year. There was no time however to properly organise Respect and Countryside Day.  Cllr Powney said that new equality legislation had drastically changed what the council could fund. The council was not stopping the festival, just stopping funding them..

There was no discussion of the Street Cleaning savings which will mean the loss of road sweeper jobs and huge reductions in street cleaning frequency. To his credit Cllr Moher was clear about the seriousness of the cuts but was cut off in mid-stream by an impatient Cllr John. Moker did manage to say that he hoped to claw back something from the current negotiations with Veolia.

Other high-speed decisions were made to approve the Alperton Master Plan, future ownership of Brent housing stock and the Arts development strategy. Twelve items were disposed of in 40 minutes much to Ann John's delight.

Brent Civic Centre costs shrouded in secrecy

Opposition to the Civic Centre, now under construction opposite the Wembley Arena, is increasingly evident and Cllr Ann John has been forced to defend the project at the current round of area consultative forums. Residents in Kilburn have criticised the Council for being 'Wembleycentric' and neglecting land that could be redeveloped in South Kilburn while others have been frustrated when trying to pin down the actual cost of the scheme and mistrustful of assurances that the project is 'self-financing', 'cost neutral' and 'won't cost residents a penny'. They are told that the £100m centre will make annual savings of amounts ranging from £2m to £4m due efficiencies' and moving out of other Brent buildings, and pay for itself in 25 years. Transferred to personal housing this is tantamount to saying that a new house 'costs nothing' if expenditure over 25 years is equal to the amount saved from not renting.

In the light of the cuts ahead and the diminishing role of local government it is not clear how many council staff will be left in 25 years and whether the building will even last that long - think of Willesden Green library, scheduled for demolition by the Council, which was opened only 22 years ago.

My Green Party colleague, Shahrar Ali, has made a freedom of information request for financial details of the Civic Centre, which have been shrouded in secrecy.

There are however some clues in the budget document. The medium term forecast for central items included a forecast of an increase in debt charges from £23.359m in 2011/12 to £26.563 in 2012/13, £27.603 in 2013/14 and £29.104m in 2015/15 as 'a result of capital programme commitments including the civic centre'. The report states that the estimated borrowing requirement for the Civic Centre is £53.868m over the next two years.  In a key comment Clive Heaphy, Director Finance and Corporate Services states:

Clearly capital money is not free - it has a revenue impact and hence the strategy for future years will be to support programmes which are externally funded and those which deliver revenue savings which are equal to or greater than the debt costs. Conversely schemes requiring unsupported borrowing and have net debt costs must be reduced to a minimum or eliminated.

This gets to the nub of the issue of information. We need figures from the Council that will enable council taxpayers to assess whether the Civic Centre project meets this criteria.