Richard Exell
It’s nice to note the occasional victory, a cut withdrawn. Last year Nicola reported on the plans to abolish the Youth Justice Board and to hive off its job of overseeing the youth justice system in England and Wales to a division of the Ministry of Justice. The government has now announced that it plans to retain the Board (scroll down to column 1070); it seems that the abolition became untenable after this summer’s riots.
HT: Social Policy Digest.
Richard Exell
Crime reduction charity NACRO has announced that it is due to make over 100 staff redundant because of “local and central government cuts and contracts coming to their natural end.” This follows a survey earlier this month by Clinks, the umbrella body for third sector rehabilitation organisations, showing that 68 per cent have staff on “or imminently facing” redundancy notices and that more than three quarters have already seen their grant incomes reduced.
Richard Exell
A new survey by Homeless Link, the coalition of homelessness charities, has found that “cuts in public funding are already having an impact – with services closing, fewer beds available and more projects having to turn homeless people away.” The annual Survey of Needs and Provision (funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government) reports that 50 per cent of homeless services in England have already had cuts and that 63 per cent of these believe it has had an effect on their clients. The most common impacts are staff redundancies, and services being reduced or closed.
Richard Exell
Most Councils plan cuts in Sure Start and library services and one in seven plan to make it harder to get free adult social care a new survey has revealed. The Local Government Association’s 2011 “Budget Survey”, which is sent out to Directors of Finance in English councils found that 83 per cent were planning to make savings in their library services and 63 per cent in Sure Start (mainly by concentrating services on vulnerable families or neighbourhoods, effectively ending the vision of Sure Start as a service whose high standards would be guaranteed by the fact the middle classes also use it.) One in five expect services for young people to be hit harder than the average.
Richard Exell
March, lobby of Parliament, online protest and rally on 11 May.
Disabled people’s benefits, services, jobs and rights are threatened as never before. Cuts to Disability Living Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, and Child Tax Credits for disabled children will have a massive impact on the living standards of disabled people and their families. Cuts to local authority services will undermine disabled people’s human rights. And the unfinished agenda for disability equality will be stalled for as long as the government insists on “no new regulation.”
The Disability Benefits Consortium and the UK Disabled People’s Council have set up the Hardest Hit coalition (full disclosure: the TUC is a supporter) to tell the Government to stop these cuts.
The Hardest Hit website has news, individuals’ stories and facts and figures, but the focus is on campaigning.
Philip Pearson
Next week, the government will launch its growth strategy. Today, the Energy Minister may have all but killed off thousands of jobs in the UK’s domestic solar power industry. It’s one of the best new growth industries we have. Before the announcement of the review, the Renewable Energy Association (REA) estimated that 17,000 new solar jobs would be created by the end of 2011. Not now it won’t. By delaying the deployment of new generation capacity the Government risks running Britain into the energy gap. Already the UK is forecast to have one of the lowest generation reserves in Europe. These are the details.
Anjum Klair
Councils in London have started to pass their financial budgets, and further councils in London will decide on how to make savings in the coming days as a result of the funding reductions they are facing from Central Government.
Anjum Klair
Hampshire County Council has agreed its budget for 2011/12 last week. It has been reported that almost 1,200 jobs are set to be cut by the council after it approved £55 million of savings. The council employs 15,000 people; the cuts represent 8% of the workforce.
Richard Exell
The whirlwind of cuts doesn’t just affect public services – it also creates an atmosphere in which other cuts are easier. London Midland trains has launched a consultation (with just three weeks for the public to comment) on “proposed changes to ticket office hours”. RMT have pointed out that the proposals will cost 122 full-time and 8 part-time jobs and lead to the closure of 9 ticket offices and shorter opening hours at 86 of 90 current offices. (This is totally accurate – you can check for your self here.) RMT General Secretary Bob Crow commented:
London Midland are jumping on the political bandwagon of cuts to jobs and services in order to pump up profits and dividends to shareholders at the expense of staff and quality.
Richard Exell
Does the government think improving the lives of people with learning disabilities is important? In 2009 the last government launched a three-year programme called Valuing People Now to improve the services used by people with learning disabilities. It involves local authorities and health, education and employment services and has been driven forward by a specialist team in the Department of Health. Now Community Care reports that the specialist team will be scrapped next month, leaving co-ordination to a cross-government board chaired by Paul Burstow, but with no officials responsible for driving the strategy forward day-to-day.
