HT: Social Policy Digest.

In a particularly worrying sign of the times, 14 per cent plan to make changes to the eligibility band at which services are offered to people after their needs have been assessed. (People who need adult care services are assessed as having low, moderate, subtstantial or critical needs and local authorities can decide at which level to offer services – it is unlikely any will be making their policy more generous in current circumstances.)

Pay and conditions for council staff are likely to be hit as well: 43 per cent are making “downwards amendments” to their redundancy or severance payments or plan to do so in the next two years. 59 per cent are making or plan pay freezes – and 22 per cent are carrying out or plan pay cuts (“other than senior officers or middle management.”)

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.  You can take part by writing to your MP,  joining the online protest or helping to mobilise for a massive day of action on 11 May. On that day there will be a march to Parliament, a lobby and a rally at Central Hall: the Hardest Hit have asked everyone who is coming to sign up, which will help the organisers to stay in contact with people who are taking part, sending out details about the march route, lobby packs for people coming to speak to their MPs and transport information.

The Hardest Hit are encouraging people who can’t get to Westminster on 11 May to take part in an online protest, by sending in photographs and videos of themselves.

The day’s events will include:

The Hardest Hit March: 11:30am

This will be an opportunity for thousands of disabled people to march past Parliament and demonstrate their support for the Hardest Hit Campaign.

The march will assemble from 11.30 on the Embankment by Horseguards Avenue.

It will start at 12.30 and take in Victoria Embankment, Bridge Street, Parliament Square, Millbank and finish in Dean Stanley Street at around 13.30.

The Protest Rally: 1:30pm

The rally will take place in Methodist Central Hall (close to the Houses of Parliament) with speeches between 15.00 and 15.30.

The Rally has a maximum capacity of 2,000 – getting a place is one of the advantages of signing up early.

The Lobby of Parliament: 2:30pm – 5:00pm

The Lobby is an opportunity for disabled people to meet with their MPs and lobby them to take action on their behalf – to make sure your MP is there it’s best to write in advance to get an appointment.

The proposals published today reduce the tariff schemes for roof-mounted schemes of over 50kW by 39 – 49%, making them totally unviable.  Many of these are community and SME projects with tremendous popular support. The tariff for standalone schemes has been reduced by over 70%, with no transition arrangements. Energy Minister Greg Barker proposes:

• 19p/kWh for 50kW to 150kW
• 15p/kWh for 150kW to 250kW
• 8.5p/kWh for 250kW to 5MW and stand-alone installations.

These compare with the tariffs that would otherwise have applied from 1 April:

• 32.9p/kWh for 10kw to 100kw
• 30.7/kWh for 100kw to 5MW and stand-alone installations

 Today’s decision to halve feed-in tariffs is rightly greeted with dismay by the industry. Units costs have fallen steeply in the UK solar industry as it has grown under the feed in tariff scheme introduced in April 2010. As the REA points out, “Critical size is needed to achieve price reductions, and that had been happening.” Solar PV is the dominant renewable installed across Europe last year.  It’s the fastest growing technology in the world. 

Howard Johns, Chairman of the Solar Trade Association said: “The solar industry is one of the genuine good news stories in the UK today, providing both jobs, a new green industry and importantly some hope.  Crushing it at this time is a serious strategic mistake but inevitable when it appears to be Treasury, not DECC, dictating energy policy”. 

Although three Government departments are coordinating the Green Economy Council, none of them hinted at this decis8ion when the Council first met in February. The draft Green Economy Roadmap says: “We remain committed to meeting the 15% target of energy from renewables by 2020 set in the 2009 Renewable Energy Directive.  Our approach will remain one of managed markets, not direct government intervention.” What is this decision then: Managed market or Government intervention? Mismanaged market might fit the bill. 

Gaynor Hartnell, Chief Executive of the Renewable Energy Association, said, “Pulling the rug out from under the feet of those that have ventured into this market was precisely the wrong response. The UK will return to the solar slow-lane.  It’s as good as a retrospective change and that does untold damage to investor confidence.  It’s not acceptable and we will fight it.”

The chart below, produced from Government figures, gives more detail about the relative scale of cuts across London Boroughs and also shows that poorer boroughs with high deprivation levels – like Islington, Haringey, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham – are among the hardest hit in London. As my previous post discussed, the cuts in Local Government funding in the UK have not been even and the settlement has resulted in the poorest councils facing the biggest hits. The cuts in the Government grant are also significantly front loaded so the impact of the cuts will be immediate and hard.

London cash reductions in government grant 2011-12 settlement :

Summary of Cuts

Bromley Council has agreed to save £33million over the next two years, £22million will be cut from its net budget of £204million this year. It will also lose 109 posts out of 2,534 this year with consultation underway on a further 67 posts. The reported savings include:

• Stopping the in-house homecare provision – saving £400,000 in 2011-2012 and £600,000 in 2012-13.
• Reducing the funding to sheltered housing – saving £500,000 in 2011-2012 and £800,000 in 2012-2013.
• Ending grants to poor families for school uniforms and shoes – to save £100,000 in the 2011-2012 and £200,000 in 2012-2013.
• Axing school crossing patrols – saving £0 in 2011-2012 and £233,000 in 2012-13.
• Having just three children and family centres across the borough rather than the 23 originally planned – saving £600,000 in 2011-2012 and £2.8million in 2012-13.
• Closing either Penge or Anerley library – saving £90,000 in 2012-2013.

Brent Council will be cutting a £100 million from its budget over the next three years, it will cut £41.7million from its budget of  £267.9 million in 2011/12.  In addition 400 jobs will be lost rather than the 350 job losses previously announced; before these cuts were announced the council employed 3,500 people. It is reported that the children and families budget is being sliced by almost 15 per cent with plans to axe around half of all children’s centre staff , while cuts to adult social care are expected to save £1.25million by 2012.

Camden Council – £35 million will be cut in its budget this year from a net figure of £286.4 million. The council will look to save £3.2 million from children’s services, Acol and Caversham’s children’s centres could close and the weekly number of free nursery hours may be reduced from 25 to 15. There will also be a reduction in grants given to nurseries and drop-in centres.

The council said it plans to lose 1,000 of a total of 4,796 jobs over three years, 20% of whom would be senior managers.

Croydon council will be making cuts of £90 million over the next 3 years, £22.7 million savings from a budget of £273.8 million will be made in 2011-12, and 310 council jobs are expected to be lost. In Croydon, though the libraries were saved, budgets for youth services and the arts have been cut by over £28,000, causing concern for youth groups in the area.

Haringey Council have approved £84 million of cuts from a total budget of £273 million over the next three years. The council said its biggest cuts – worth £46 million – would take place in 2011-12.  More than 1,000 jobs will be lost, from a total of 4,500 staff, as a result of the spending cuts. Labour council leader Claire Kober said:

The government cuts are a hammer blow to the people of Haringey, particularly as we are already one of the most deprived boroughs in the country…… The sheer scale of the cuts we are being forced to make will undoubtedly now have a detrimental effect on vital services, and on the people of Haringey.

Services for young people and elderly people will be scaled back, and less money will be spent on libraries and leisure centres.

It is reported that the cuts to the youth service include:

• Youth Service budget to be cut by 75% to around £650,000, saving £1.96million by 2013. Eight youth centres have closed already, the remaining five are under threat.
• Connexions careers advice service for vulnerable young people has reduced by 75% saving £1.64million.
• Children’s centre service reduced and targeted at most vulnerable, saving £6.52million by 2013.

This comes as Haringey was named as having one of the highest numbers of children living in severe poverty.

Hammersmith and Fulham Council, are making £65 million of savings over three years. 700 jobs will be lost over three years, with 330 to go in the coming financial year. The council reductions include:

• £500,000 saving on voluntary sector grants.
• £310,000 reorganisation of the library service.
• A consultation is underway on a major reorganisation of family support and children’s centres – which is set to save £3.26million a year.

Islington will experience a £100 million cut over four years, £39million of direct Government cuts are in the next financial year with a further £12million following in the financial year 2012/13. The council will also lose around 300 jobs; the borough’s finance chief warned up to 700 Town Hall jobs will disappear over the next four years.

Lambeth Council has finalised its plans to cut £79million over three years. The plans approved include a cut to 24 lollipop patrols at school crossings, three quarters of public toilets will be closed; and maintenance of streets, parks and cemeteries will be scaled back, along with pothole repairs.

Newham Council has agreed to cut £100million over the next three years. Newham said £47.9million would be saved from its total budget of £291.5million this year. Around 200 council posts are to go at the authority.

Westminster Council is to cut up to 450 jobs over the next two years as it looks to save £60million. The job losses were approved as part of the borough’s 2011/12 budget which has been reduced to £236million.

As further information becomes available on cuts in Local Government we will be reporting  this on the Touchstone blog.

My previous blog in November 2010 also looks at the impact of cuts in London.

Opposition councillors estimate that the four year financial saving target for the council is £100m. The savings proposed include Hampshire County Council wanting to reduce the number of children’s centres from 81 to 53, focusing services on more deprived areas. The council is planning to move from the existing model of 81 individually managed children’s centres to a total of 53 merged centres, in a bid to save £6m. The children’s centre consultation is open until 14 March.

Cumbria County Council has agreed to £33 million of spending cuts for 2011/12, leading to reductions in services and an estimated 611 job losses.  The Council’s deputy leader, Labour’s Stewart Young, said:

This has been the most difficult budget most of us have ever been involved in, in the face of the worst financial settlement we have ever received. … We are making net savings of £33m next year but further savings will follow for at least the three subsequent years.”

The cuts include:

• Grants for children’s services, putting some Sure Start Centres at risk;
• £480,000 on day services for the elderly, leading to closure of some day care centres;
• Closure of some household waste recycling centres and reduced hours at others;
• Reduced staff levels at some fire stations;
• £346,000 in rural bus subsidies, putting some routes at risk;
• Payments to private sector care providers;
• £1.186m from the Connexions youth service;
• £603,000 in sports grants and £68,000 in grants to cultural organisations.

Lancashire County Council has approved its budget for the next three years, which includes cuts of £179million. The council has said it still has to decide exactly how it will go about making the cuts. Some of the proposals are currently out to consultation and therefore the shaping of these services has still to be determined.  

It has agreed to spend £133m less on management and administration over the next three years. The measures will see the closure of at least one respite care home in the county, cuts to social services and bus routes, and job losses. The GMB union has said that up to 6,000 jobs are under threat. Dorset County Council has agreed £31m of budget cuts, and more than 500 jobs will be lost at the Council.

The council have agreed to axe £200,000 from school crossing patrols and £800,000 from its library budget, which will see some closures. It will also reduce road maintenance in rural areas, some youth services and passenger transport to help balance the books.

The council employs 4,500 staff, who are being asked to take a 5% pay cut by taking 12 days of unpaid leave. The Dorchester-based council is currently consulting with  unions about taking 12 days unpaid leave and other changes to terms and conditions, which could come into effect by January 2012.

Council leader Angus Campbell said front-line services will inevitably be affected in the future. He said the council had lost out on about £18m in government grants, and that

 ”this is the harshest local government settlement in living memory” 

Suffolk County Council has approved a number of cuts which will see care homes closed, lollipop patrols axed, open access to youth clubs stopped and library services slashed. The local news reports that in order to make savings of £42.5m in the next 12 months, every single school crossing patrol will be axed, the subsidy to meals on wheels will be withdrawn and £350,000 will be slashed from the library service –putting 29 out of 44 facilities at risk of closure.

A significant £12m is being saved by closing or selling 16 care homes, open access to youth clubs will stop, and 18 waste centres will shut. The £42.5m savings are the first step in a three-year austerity programme that could see the council’s budget shrink by up to £125m overall.

Gloucestershire county council have approved a four-year programme of cuts totalling £114m. The plans will see 22 youth centres and 10 libraries close unless communities come forward to run them. The council is looking to save around £3.6m in youth services. Four day care centres will also close to save £2m over three years.  The council is also looking to cut bus subsidy by £2m, it currentlyprovides subsidies for more than 150 bus services all across the county. Farmland and other assets are also planned to be sold off. Over the next four years the council’s total staff will be reduced by 1,000 people, this equates to one in six staff.   

Mandy Brown, who has severe learning disabilities, spends three days a week at a day care centre in Gloucester which will now close. She has been going there for nearly 30 years. 

 ”I’ve got friends there I’ve known through the school I used to go to, I just don’t want to see it close. The staff there are brilliant… please don’t let it close.”

Users of the affected day care centres will be offered personal budgets to pay for similar services elsewhere, but some of their families say it will not be practical.

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.

Most people in the aid community are familiar with this but haven’t complained much about, probably for fear of drawing attention to the one last ring-fenced area of Government spending. 

The sleight of hand is based on how you get from the current overseas aid budget (0.56% of GNI) to the 0.7% target in 2013. You can increase spending year on year, as the previous Government planned, or you can peg aid at its current 0.56% until the final year and then slap it up all in one go, which is what the Government is planning (actually over the last few years of the previous administration, aid increases sometimes increased faster, sometimes slower than a simple year on year increase at the same rate, but broadly speaking, these are the options).

So, in 2011, Labour would have spent about 0.6% of GNI on overseas aid (£9.3bn instead of £8.4bn) and in 2012, the previous administration would have spent 0.65% of GNI on overseas aid (£10.5bn instead of £9.2bn – GNI is forecast to increase, so even a pegged proportion of it increases in money terms). Then in 2013, the Government plans to increase overseas aid spending by £2.8bn in a single year to reach the same £12bn figure that Labour planned to reach. So, £2.2bn less spent on aid over the next two years, but the same eventual target reached.

Just how the Government plans to implement that 30% increase in the aid budget in a single year is not immediately apparent (experts are getting worried about the impact on the bodies such a huge increase will be channelled through), and the serious risk is that at that point, the pledge will be abandoned because it is just too staggeringly large for a then impoverished British electorate to take. A nightmare scenario for the development community and the world’s poor all in one go – but then cutting the aid budget by stealth by over £1 billion a year in the next two years is bad enough.

Dr Anil Chopra, medical director at the South West Essex trust is reported as confirming that their decision to stop funding 213 procedures is part of plan designed to bring down spending. The magazine’s survey reveals a clear trend to toughen admissions criteria to increase savings, with Harrow PCT setting a £3.4m intarget for “unscheduled care and admissions avoidance.” The Guardian‘s coverage of this story adds that obese patients and smokers are being denied hip and knee surgery and at least one trust is handing over abortions to Marie Stopes.

Pulse quotes a Department of Health spokesperson as saying:

We are committed to devolving power and responsibility for commissioning services to GPs, who are best placed to ensure patients get the high quality care they need. Aligning clinical decisions with management of resources will lead to more effective referrals.

Nearly all the council’s 10 elderly care homes and up to half of its 34 libraries and youth clubs are set to close. Cuts will also hit the Connexions careers service to young people, street lights will be switched off at night and the county music service and children’s centres also face cuts.

The survey found that only 60 out of 150 local authorities were able to agree when asked if they could give a commitment to keeping all of their children’s centres open. A further 29 local authorities said that they could not agree with the statement but they had ‘no plans’ to close any of the settings, while 61 local authorities did not respond to the survey or said that they had not yet reached a decision on the future of their children’s centres.

The research follows a survey of 917 children’s centre managers in January, also by the Daycare Trust and 4Children, which estimated that around 250 centres will be forced to close over the next 12 months and that staff at 1,000 centres have been issued with ‘at risk of redundancy notices’.

More than 80% of the Council’s funding comes from Government grants, however the City has seen significant reductions in its major specific grants as set out below.

Specific Grants lost (affect most deprived communities)

The Council has had the maximum possible reduction in formula funding from the Government and has had its general revenue funding cut by over 22% in the next two years. The effect of the cuts in Government funding is that the city has a budget gap of £91m for 2011/12 and an additional £50m for 2012/13. The Council says the scale of the frontloaded cuts means that significant effects on Council services are unavoidable, and that the council is currently estimating between 1,100 and 1,500 jobs are at risk from its spending cutbacks.

Liverpool has been hit hard by the Local Government finance settlement; despite having some of the highest levels of deprivation, Liverpool is among the local authorities that face the maximum cut of 8.9%. The spread of cuts in the UK has not been even, the settlement has resulted in the poorest councils facing the biggest hits. Richard’s post shows us that the six most deprived Councils are all facing the maximum cut, and that out of the 37 local authorities facing the maximum reduction only two are less deprived than the average. Analysis by Children and Young People Now also shows that local government cuts will disproportionately affect authorities with higher numbers of children in need. Of the 27 authorities facing cuts in the coming year of eight per cent or more, eight — Liverpool, Hackney, Hull, Islington, Manchester, Nottingham, Southwark and Tower Hamlets — are ranked in the bottom 10 of the children in need rank of average scores, according to the Local Index of Child Well-Being 2009.

The council in Liverpool calculates that, had the Government reduced the city’s funding by the national average, the council would have been better off by £26m and the worst cuts would have not have not been necessary.

Councillor Joe Anderson, City Council leader, said:

There is no disguising the fact that these are the most severe cuts we have had to make in generations. While we have tried to protect frontline services, especially those to vulnerable people, the sheer scale of the cuts mean that it has not always been possible to do that…….…We have had to make heartbreaking decisions which will cause real pain in our communities. That is a direct result of Liverpool being the hardest hit of any council in the reduction of grants, grants previously given in view of the levels of deprivation in the city. Unfortunately the deprivation remains but the money has been removed.

My previous post also shows how Liverpool has been affected by spending cuts and why Liverpool and the Northwest are particularly vulnerable to cuts. More recent research by the Centre for Cities think tank on the impact of Government spending cuts also concluded that Liverpool is among the most affected cities in the UK.

Budget Proposals by Liverpool City Council  - Summary of cuts

Children’s care services and adult social care have been protected as far as possible.

Adult social care

The Council’s (non grant) adult social care expenditure has only experienced a reduction of 3%. The Council will continue to fund critical and substantial care. Moderate care will no longer be funded.

Young People

The Early Intervention Grant which funds children’s centres has been cut by the Government by almost one half. The loss of grant over the spending settlement period is over £12m. The Council has protected the children’s centres from the full effect of the Government cut and will only reduce children’s centre’s funding over this period by £10m. The Council will provide funding to keep almost all the 26 children’s centres open, and will consult about the possible closure of four centres in the least deprived areas of the City.

The youth service will have to operate on a reduced budget, which in 2011/12 will be £5.5m a reduction of 28%, and in 2012/13 will be £5.05m.

Transport passes for children in further education can no longer be afforded, and there will be a restriction of transport pass eligibility for children attending their nearest suitable school.

Libraries and Leisure Centres

The resources available to Libraries and Leisure Centres have been reduced by 28% in order to protect care services to the vulnerable. Libraries budget will be cut by £458,000 in 2011/12 rising to £1.9m in 2012/13. Leisure centre funding will be cut by £1.6m in 2011/12 rising to £2.7m in 2012/13. There will be a reduction in the number of arts and cultural events funded by the Council.

Voluntary Sector

The Voluntary and Community sector is mainly funded by specific Government grants (Area Based Grant and Supporting People, etc). These specific grants have been cut by 47%. The Voluntary and Community sector will continue to be funded by the Council by over £19m, hoever this represents a reduction of £18m.

Highways and environment

Spending on road maintenance, street cleansing, parks and open spaces will be reduced by £5.8m.

To put this in perspective, the public funding received by Liverpool Rape Crisis in 2010 was less than the cost to the state of just one single rape. According to the Women’s Resource Centre, the estimated cost to the state of one rape is £73,487 – £13,487 more than the annual funding for the Liverpool Rape Crisis centre.

The news from Liverpool sits squarely at odds with the Home Secretary, Theresa May’s announcement just last month that the government would be safeguarding £10m funding for Rape Crisis services.  According to Theresa May, Rape Crisis centres are “a key element of the government’s wider strategy to tackle violence against women and girls. We are absolutely committed to ensuring every victim of rape has access to the support that they need to rebuild their lives.”

As I have mentioned before, leaking stories to the Telegraph is the defence establishment’s favourite way of fighting battles within the cabinet – there’s a guaranteed Tory audience, bound to take exception – so there is no guarantee that this is going to happen. Last year’s reports included a lot of scares: the Ghurkhas and the SAS are still in existence; on the other hand, the Telegraph was actually quite a good source for the cuts that did take place – the Harriers were scrapped and so were the Nimrods. It will be interesting if a Conservative-led government does succeed in imposing deeper defence cuts than any Labour administration has ever made.

Blackburn with Darwen Council is in the top 20 worst hit local authorities in the country. The workforce is to shrink by about a quarter with up to 1,000 job losses in total. Some staff have left the authority, mainly through voluntary redundancy or early retirement since late 2009, and these vacant posts have been deleted. The Council also expects that 500 jobs will go in the next few months through redundancy.

Council leader, Councillor Kate Hollern, said:

The speed and depth of these cuts mean we are forced to consider reducing, changing or in some cases stopping what Council staff provide for the people of our two towns.  We have lost £33m in total…All service areas are sharing the pain. Back office/support functions were looked at first but even the frontline services we know are so needed can’t be fully protected.

Measures announced include:

• Changing the focus of youth services to ensure efforts are more targeted to work with vulnerable young people
• Reduction in specialist services for children such as educational psychology and welfare
• Closure of four bowling greens and 20 play areas
• Subsidy withdrawn and reduced from 16 bus services
• Potholes fixed on main roads only
• Closure of three of five adult day care centres
• Major reduction in street cleaning
• Many grants to community and voluntary sector to end
• Reduction in number of street lights and piloting evening dimming of lights
• Protecting the flagship network of children’s centres by negotiating handing over direct management of four buildings to nearby schools
• Less care and repair grants for the elderly and vulnerable
• Virtually ending housing clearance, repair and affordable housing building
• Changes to library provision including reduced opening hours, replacement of mobile service with housebound service, less new books
• Reduction in many proactive/early intervention services including domestic abuse, drugs and alcohol prevention and diversionary activities for young people
• Advice of debt, welfare rights and housing to reduce