Cuts Watch: Regions

Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #378: u-turn on regional offices

9th February 2011 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Regions

Richard Exell

Back in the summer, the Department for Communities and Local Government abolished the Government Offices for the Regions, ignoring protests about the valuable work they do and the need for a regional presence for central government. Yesterday, in a Parliamentary written answer, BIS minister Mark Prisk announced that his Department is re-creating them. As he added,

It is important that BIS has a policy presence outside of Whitehall so that the Department can communicate effectively with local enterprise partnerships, businesses and other organisations.

It would be interesting to know whether Eric Pickles agrees.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #361: Grants for Business Investment

1st February 2011 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Regions

Richard Exell

An important scheme that gives grants to protect jobs in Assisted Areas has been quietly decimated in a “stealth cut.” Grants for Business Investment is a scheme that gives grants to companies to create or protect jobs in deprived parts of the country. Its speciality is capital projects that wouldn’t otherwise go ahead on the same scale or in the same location. According to the Industrial Communities Alliance, over the past 6 years GBI has given grants worth £428m, creating or protecting 77,000 jobs.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #324: LGA predicts 140,000 council job cuts in the next year

25th November 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Regions, Labour market

Alice Hood

More details are emerging about the likely scale of local government job cuts and the impact on the most deprived areas of the country. The Local Government Association has today revised its estimate of the number of jobs likely to be lost in the next year, raising the figure from 100,000 to 140,000. The LGA says that this is because of the way that the cuts are being front-loaded towards the first year of the four year spending review period.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #315: more museum cuts

19th November 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Culture, Cuts Watch: Regions

Alice Hood

The Guardian has uncovered further huge cuts to museums this week. The cuts, tucked away in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport Business Plan, will affect up to 20 institutions classed as ‘non-national’ which receive DCMS funding. The affected museums and galleries will have their grant from DCMS entirely removed in 2015.

For some institutions such as the National Coalmining Museum in Wakefield, this represents about 80% of their funding. Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums is not a single institution, but a body that manages a dozen museums and galleries in Tyne and Wear, all of which are expected to be affected as this article from the Newcastle Journal explains.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #275: £37 million from the West Midlands

7th October 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Regions

Nicola Smith

In response to Government cuts Advantage West Midlands (the regional RDA) has cut funding for projects worth £37.1 million.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #266: RDAs and EU funding

29th September 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Regions

Richard Exell

Local Government Chronicle reports (paywall) that the abolition of the Regional Development Agencies could lead to the loss of money from the European Regional Development Fund that had already been allotted to the United Kingdom.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #261: More cuts in children’s education services

28th September 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Regions

Anjum Klair

Local news of how education cuts are affecting schools and education services keeps building. It was reported last week that Perry Street School in Billericay, which had been granted £800,000 by Essex County Council’s Early Years scheme to construct a new building, has had the new development put on hold.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #246: Council services could be £20 billion underfunded by 2015

17th September 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Regions, Cuts Watch: Social care

Richard Exell

In a submission to the Treasury, the Local Government Association has warned that frontline services face a shortfall of £12.5 bn in 2013/4, rising to £20 bn by 2014/5. The gap will be created by rising demand for services, combined with cuts in government grants.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #242: Scottish Fire Brigades

14th September 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Regions

Richard Exell

The Fire Brigades Union has warned that the fire service in Scotland has been making cuts since 2006 and any further loss off funding will threaten the lives of fire officers and members of the public.

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Cuts Watch
Cuts Watch #237: 1,500 jobs in Somerset

10th September 2010 — Filed under: Cuts Watch: Regions

Nicola Smith

1,500 local authority jobs are being cut in Somerset in response to Government cuts.

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