Butt: Brent Council being forced to cut to 'the muscle or even the bone'

Brent Council released the following statement on the 2016-17 budget yesterday.
 
Brent Council is having to cope with a halving of central government funding. We are working hard to keep the negative impact on the services you value the most to a minimum by squeezing the most out of every last penny of taxpayers' money. However these tough times are forcing us to face some difficult choices.

Cllr Muhammed Butt, Brent Council Leader, said:

"The recent spending review handed local authorities the most severe cuts of any government department. This comes on top of five years of progressively harder funding settlements since 2010. During this time our main core government funding has already been reduced by over £80m and there will be further significant reductions in the years to come.

"After taking account of these revenues falling by more than a half over the next four years, and the money we generate ourselves, overall funding is expected to fall by another quarter in the next four years. As a result, we are working harder and harder every year to balance our budget without cutting into the services and facilities that Brent residents value the most. All the while we have tried to recognise that local people have been facing hard times too, which is why we've frozen Council Tax levels for the last six years.

"The proposals we're publishing today try to squeeze the very last penny out of the money we have to spend on services, by being more efficient and modern in our approach, driving down costs, and maximising income from our commercial assets. We are doing our best to keep the negative impacts on front line services to an absolute minimum but there will be significant changes given the budget position."

"It's time to face the fact - the easier savings can each only be achieved once, and when the following year brings the need to cut more money, our options become narrower. We can only sell our buildings and consolidate onto one site once to save money. We can only create digital channels to save money over more expensive face to face ways of working once. We can only cut out any element of waste once to save cash. After cutting the fat year after year, sooner or later you get down to the muscle or even the bone."

"I agree with Lord Porter, Conservative Chair of the Local Government Association, who said just recently:

"It is wrong that the services our local communities rely on will face deeper cuts than the rest of the public sector yet again, and for local taxpayers to be left to pick up the bill for new government policies without any additional funding.

"Even if councils stopped filling in potholes, maintaining parks, closed all children's centres, libraries, museums, leisure centres and turned off every street light, they will not have saved enough money to plug the financial black hole they face by 2020."

"I'm confident that we're not in the position in Brent of having to make cuts like that - not yet at least. But it really is getting harder and harder every year, and there are years of this to come. It is just as well that the people of Brent are so strong, united and resilient, as we are really being tested."

Have your say

We have arranged five public consultation meetings to discuss the budget with local people, and will be arranging two additional budget specific public meetings in January. These five Brent Connects meetings are:

• Brent Connects Wembley: Tuesday, 12 January 2016
• Brent Connects Kilburn and Kensal: Tuesday, 19 January 2016
• Brent Connects Willesden: Monday, 1 February 2016
• Brent Connects Harlesden: Tuesday, 2 February 2016
• Brent Connects Kingsbury and Kenton: Wednesday, 3 February 2016

All meetings above start at 7pm.

• Read the detailed budget report here

Council Tax increase of 1.99% would raise £1.4m over two years and add £21 to Band D residences

The debate on a possible Council Tax rise of 1.99% may be helped by the following figures I have obtained from Brent Council:

A council tax increase of 1.99% would provide £1.7m (gross) and £0.7m (minus the freeze grant) in each year. 

Therefore the council's ongoing resources would be £1.4m higher after two years of council tax increases. This assumes the freeze grant would continue to be added as permanent funding by the government in subsequent years (which is the current arrangement).

A 1.99% increase would be equal to a £21 increase for Band D residents.

Readers can see the full range of proposed cuts HERE but it may be useful to see the value of a few key cuts in relation to that £700k achieved each year from a Council Tax increase:

Adult Home Care: The proposals are to cut home visit times from 30 minutes to 15 minutes saving £600k

Stonebridge Adventure Playgroun : Proposed ceasing funding to save £118k

Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre: Closure to save £13k

Energy Solutions: Cease grant to save £50k

Closure of Leisure Centre:  saving £400k

Reduction in Street Cleansing (inc no litter clearance in Zone 5 residential roads): saving £400k

Scrutinising Brent's devastating budget cuts

As regular readers will know there was concern when Brent Council changed its Scrutiny structure after the 2014 local elections so that there was just one Scrutiny Committee. In the face of criticism it was argued that the Committee would set up task groups to do more detailed work.

On Tuesday the Budget Scrutiny Task Group will present its Interim Feedback on the 2015-17 budget proposals.

I leave you to decide whether this report measures up to the task of robustly and independently  scrutinising a budget that will have a drastic impact on services and thus on local residents, especially the most vulnerable.

Brent Council Risk Register reveals potential impact of the cuts

The Corporate Risk Register is an important document that highlights the risks of Council services not being delivered effectively and the actions taken to overcome that risk.

As the budget is reduced and cuts in staffing take place, as well as out-sourcing of services, it is important to keep an eye on the Register which flags up potential issues.

The full document is available HERE but below I have set out some of the main areas. The wording is from the original, except for the correction of some typos and spelling mistakes, with my comments in red.

Under each heading the risk is set out, the impact, and (in italics)  the most recent action undertaken to reduce the risk:

Cuts may have greatest impact on the most vulnerable says Brent Council budget report

Brent Council spending

There was a short Twitter exchange during last night's Council Meeting on the possibility of raising Council Tax with some arguing that by freezing Council Tax for five years the Council had undermined its own revenue base.  Others said that the amount raised beneath the 2% limit was so small as to hardly compensate for the loss of government grant made to Councils who freeze the tax. In terms of the amount raised as a proportion of the £54m cuts required it was piffling.

Former Labour councillor, and Brent Executive member, James Powney discusses this on his blog today. LINK

In Green Party circles the idea of a 'progressive' Council Tax has engaged people in debate LINK

Meanwhile here in Brent full reports have been published for each  potential area for cuts or revenue raising possibilities. In some cases there are soft and hard options given. The latter being ceasing service delivery.  The report to the cabinet makes clear that no decisions are required of the Cabinet at this stage except to go out for consultation on the proposals.

These are the links to the various reports:

• Chief Finance Officer's report budget-report, item 4. PDF 214 KB
• Appendix 1 Savings budget-app1, item 4. HTM 1 KB
• Adult Social Care 1-asc, item 4. PDF 299 KB
• Children and  Young People 2-cyp, item 4. PDF 266 KB
• Environment 3-env, item 4. PDF 399 KB
• Regeneration and Growth 4-rg, item 4. PDF 462 KB
• Assistant Chief Executive 5-ace, item 4. PDF 238 KB
• Public Health 6-ph, item 4. PDF 118 KB
• Finance and IT 7-fin-it, item 4. PDF 124 KB
• Human Resources 8-hr, item 4. PDF 120 KB
• Budget Savings by theme budget-app1-pdf-format, item 4. PDF 214 KB

The main report states:

There is a risk that the collective savings will have a significant impact on those vulnerable people who are the greatest users of council services.

Overall, the groups most at risk of being impacted are older people, disabled people, children and people from black ethnic backgrounds.

There would also be a low impact on women, people who do not speak English and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. There is a risk that disabled people could be severely affected by experiencing a raft of changes from different service areas, even if each proposal may appear to have a limited impact in isolation.

Many proposals will have an impact on staff, especially in corporate services where the majority of the budgets are made up of staffing costs.

Given the scale of staffing reductions, there is potential for these proposals to have a significant impact on all levels of the workforce. The majority of the workforce is BAME and it is important that changes are not disproportionate in terms of their impact. Brent’s Managing Change Policy and Procedure provides a framework to be followed during times of organisational change to minimise the risk of a negative impact on any equality groups. The Managing Change Policy requires that staffing changes undergo equality analysis to ensure that the restructure process is conducted in a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory manner. The Equality Team will review the cumulative impact of restructures on the workforce diversity profile.

 Cllr Sam Stopp's commentary on the Full Council meeting should perhaps be read with the above comments in mind LINK

December 15th Brent Cabinet likely to produce a gloomy Christmas

The December 15th Cabinet meeting is shaping up to be the most controversial of the year and unfortunately is likely to produce some bad news just ahead of the Christmas holiday.

Among the items on the agenda LINK will be the restructuring of the council's senior management which will see some lose their jobs while other jobs will be created. This is currently tabled as 'open' so the public should get sight of the proposals a week before the meeting.


More importantly in the long run are two budget items.

One is the two year budget for 2015-2017 which will set out draft 'savings' to produce a reduction in expenditure of more than 30%.

Cllr Michael Pavey is the Lead Member for both these items.

The other is the schools budget for 2015-2016. Cllr Ruth Moher is the lead member for this item. Although reductions are unlikely to be headline grabbing there may well be changes in charges for services to schools which will affect their overall budgets.

Brent Council's spending cut by £18m in proposed 2014-15 budget

Full Council on March 3rd will vote on the 2014-15 Budget which incorporates £17.8m reduction in service areas as set out below:

The situation is likely to be even worse in 2015-16 with a budget gap expected to be more than £33m.  The report going to the meeting states that the Council since 2010 has made £80m 'savings' at an average impact of £702 per household.'  The Council Tax proposed is £1,357.94 for a benchmark Band D property.

Further details on the impact of the savings/cuts are set out in the document below:

Brent Executive to discuss £18m budget cut tonight

The Brent Executive will tonight discuss a budget reduction for 2014-15 of £18m that will go before Full Council for final approval. This is achieved through a mixture of reduction in services, out-sourcing, adminstrative savings and increased fees.

The 'savings' are in the following service areas:

Adult Social Care £4,450,000
Children and Young People £3,157,000
Environment and Neighbourhoods £3,412,000
Regeneration and Growth £2,729,000
Corporate Service £4,081,000

Full details are here:

The Executive will also discuss proposals on council rent increases which average 3.7% or £4.53 per week per dwelling with higher increases for larger properties. Full details HERE

Brent Executive to agree Community Right to Challenge arrangements

The Brent Executive is to discuss the borough's policy on the Community Right to Challenge at its April Meeting.

Although it sounds like a right to challenge some of the more dubious decisions of the Council it is in fact the right of specific groups to bid to run current services which came into being under the Localism Act of 2011. It can be seen as a further move to end local government as we know it, introduction of the Big Society by the back door, and an escalation of out-sourcing. However, some Brent services such as the special needs playscheme are already run by such organisations.

This is some of the information already available elsewhere:

Only relevant bodies can make an Expression of Interest in running a service. The Localism Act lists the following as relevant bodies: 

• A voluntary or community body
• A body of persons or a trust which is established for charitable purposes only
• A parish council
• Two or more employees of the relevant authority
• Any other person or body specified by the Secretary of State by regulations. 

A voluntary body is defined here as a body that is not a public or local authority, the activities of which are not carried on for profit. It can generate a surplus provided it is used for the purposes of its activities or invested in the community.  A community body is a body which is not a public or local authority, the activities of which are primarily for the benefit of the community. The definitions of a voluntary or a community body are intended to cover a wide range of civil society organisations. They reflect the required characteristics of such bodies rather than referring to your organisational structure. This allows for flexibility to accommodate future forms of civil society organisation. The way in which groups demonstrate community benefit will vary depending on their legal form and the associated requirements. The statutory guidance gives more information.

In fact Brent is behind other local authorities in publishing details on how it will administer the scheme. An officer in response to an FOI request earlier this year said the delay was due to officer sickness.

An example of an Expression of Interest form can  be found on the Haringey Council website HERE

It is likely that in the future this, along with the Community Right to Bid, Community Asset Transfer and Community Right to Build,  may be used by campaigners seeking to save local services but sustainability, as with the library volunteer bids, is likely to be a major issue.

Further information can be found at the My Community Rights website HERE 

Useful information for tonight's Public Brent Budget Meeting

There is another Public Meeting at Brent Town Hall (7pm) this evening to discuss the forthcoming Council Budget with Muhammed Butt. This Appendix to the main document sets out service areas where 'savings' will be made as well as increased fees.

It is worth trying to find out what the apparently innocuous statements really mean in terms of services:

Headline figures from the Brent Budget paint a dismal picture

If you are going to either of the public meetings about the 2013-14 Brent budget next week you may want to have a look at the documentation that is available on the Council website.  It is available on the Agenda for the February 11th Executive HERE and is item 21 of a 28 item agenda.

I will try and highlight the main points here.  As previously mentioned the Council Tax is unchanged despite a rise being built into earlier assumption and the Council intends to keep reserves at the current level.

Adult Social Care continues to be one of the main pressures on the budget. Here is a summary of the changes between 2012-13 and 2013-14:

Click on image to enlarge

The forecast of savings required until 2017, which now assume no rise in Council Tax, are:

Click on image to enlarge

One of the main clues to where the cuts will actually fall is on this grid LINK with an assumption of  substantial cuts in costs in 2014-15 through the out-sourcing of integrated health and the huge Public Realm contract which covers waste, recycling, street cleansing. parks maintenance and Brent Housing Partnership. The move to the Civic Centre is expected to yield net savings of  £500,000 in 2014-15 although I seem to remembers a figure of £4m being stated when the £100,000,000 cost of the Centre was queried. (Annual savings of £4m over 25 years was cl;aimed to mean that the Centre would pay for itself).

A fuller account of service costs pressures to 2017 can be found HERE . They include the transition of children with disabilities to adult social care, 'transitional clients (with learning disabilities) living longer into adult age', increased numbers of older people with dementia, increase in demand for children's social care placements, price increases from the West London Waste Authority and largest of all at £2.45m in 2013-14 for an increase in homeless demand as a result of the Local Housing Allowance changes. £0.3m is lost as a result of the Coalition's 28% reduction of the DWP grant for administering Housing Benefit and Council Tax benefit. There is an increased cost of £0.75m for youth offending services with a rather hopeful suggestion that this might be reduced in future. I rather doubt that unemployment, benefit cuts,  homelessness and continuing austerity will enable that hope to be fulfilled.

All in all a dismal picture and which once again raises the issue of when will the Council decide 'enough is enough;' and go on the offensive against the Coalition and refuse to deliver their cuts.

A plethora of Brent budget discussions the week after next - but will they make any difference?

The dates for the Brent Budget 'Discussions' (note NOT 'Consultations') have now been sent out in an invitation letter  (see below). The Labour Group is discussing the budget on the evening of Monday February 4th and the Finance and Budget Overview and Scrutiny Committee will be discussing it at 7.30pm on Tuesday February 5th.  It is not clear where that leaves the February 7th meeting in terms of influencing the budget but presumably more details should be available by then following the earlier meetings

Budget Discussion – Invitation to a Public Meeting

Cllr Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council would like to invite you to one of two public meetings about Brent Council’s budget proposals for the forthcoming year.

Both meetings will take place in Brent Town Hall.

Date	Time	Venue	Chair
Mon 4th Feb	2.30 to 4.30pm	Committee Rooms 1, 2 and 3.	Cllr Aslam Choudry
Thur 7th Feb	7.00 to 9.00pm	Paul Daisley Hall.	Cllr James Denselow

Everyone is welcome to attend. These meetings will give you an opportunity to question and raise issues of concern with Cllr Butt and members of the Council’s executive.

You can also hear about the difficult choices facing local government in the current economic climate and Council’s proposals to continue to maintain high quality services for our residents.

I do hope you be able to attend one of these meetings? If you need any further information please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kindest regards

Owen Thomson

Community Engagement Team

Customer & Community Engagement

Brent Council

Tel: 020 8937 1055

Butt: First priority is maintaining budget integrity and making savings

In his report on administration priorities for the November 19th Full Council meeting, Council Leader Muhammed Butt outlines the pressures on the council and the likelihood that cuts in public expenditure will continue up to 2020, and concludes:

The Council therefore has a twin challenge. First to reorder its priorities to further provide individuals and communities with support in the face of these problems and secondly to make more cuts in expenditure whilst avoiding what the Local Government Association term the ‘Graph of Doom’. This Graph of Doom concept is a projection that if both cuts to public expenditure and demand for services remain on the same trend then by 2020 Local Government will end up only delivering waste and high end social care services. 

To achieve these two goals we are therefore proposing a package of proposals to address some of the immediate issues facing people. At the same time we are beginning a fundamental review of all the Council’s services. We must divert people from high end provision by supporting as many people as possible to live independent, fulfilling lives. It is only by fundamentally recasting what we do that we can serve the needs of local people.

However, these aspiration have to be seen in what he deems the first priority:

The first priority must remain protecting the integrity of the Budget and making savings.

He says that the One Council programme will deliver £80m savings by the end of the spending review period  but because of the pressures Members need to consider further project areas. The 'Members' may need help with translating the next section of his report:

However, as fundamental change is the only way to achieve genuine savings, long 'lead in times' will be necessary to reflect the growing complexity of cross council, and complexity of cross-partnerships, change and early indications form Members of avenues to follow will be vital.

Butt says that the Executive has set for itself 'three key and critical policy outcomes' for the next three years:

1. To promote fairness
2, To strengthen our community and
3, To support growth in the local economy

The question is whether those can be maintained given the funding gap that has to be bridged and whether   a more radical strategy is needed to avoid the 'Graph of Doom',  including setting a 'needs based' budget and mobilising against the Coalition's attack on local government.

The public are unlikely to have much information on the detail and extent of Brent Council cuts until early 2013 now due to slippage in the timetable.

Confirmation of central government funding for local councils will not be known until mid-December and the London Mayor will submit his draft budget on December 17th. Consultation with 'resients, businesses, voluntary sector, partner agencies and trade unions' on the Brent budget propoals is scheduled to take place 'up to Januaruary'.  The Budget Overview and Scrutiny Committee  will discuss the evidence collected and the 1st interim report on January 15th and the General Purposes Committee will agree the Council Tax and Business Rate bases on January 22nd.

The detailed  budget proposals will not be discussed by the Budget and Finance Overview and Scrutiny Committee until February 5th and just a week later, on February 11th,  the Executive  will consider the final proposals, including fees and charges for 2013-14 and cuts in the housing budget as well as rent increases.

The timetable means that public  'consultation' will take place over a very short period and that over the busy Christmas period.