Hyndburn Council to save £2.1million in cuts (From Lancashire Telegraph)
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Hyndburn Council to save £2.1million in cuts
3:30pm Thursday 9th February 2012 in News
MAJOR cuts are set to be implemented in Hyndburn as council bosses look to make £2.1million savings this year.
Hyndburn Council said staff costs will be reduced by 25 per cent, the Cabinet Action Fund, a community spending budget, will be cut by 50 per cent and £10,000 which has previously been offered in financial support to Accrington Stanley will be axed.
The council faces finding the savings on the back of £2.6million cuts made last year. Council leader Miles Parkinson said the budget focused on front line services and included implementing a freeze on council tax and ensuring parking in the borough remains free.
Coun Parkinson said staff will be encouraged to job share and cut hours to avoid compulsory redundancies and wage cuts.
He said: “The amount given to Hyndurn by central government traditionally is being continually axed and we have to make rolling cuts like these for the forseeable future.
"The council are focused on front line services and we feel that back office savings can be made. Where staff hours may be cut we would prefer to keep hold of our employees and their experience because they make the council what it is.”
Opposition leader Peter Britcliffe said: “Front line services in our communities were affected last year. Now I fear that the townships will further suffer.”
Comments(7)
porky06
says...
3:52pm Thu 9 Feb 12
hairy mary
says...
7:26pm Thu 9 Feb 12
Cllr Ken Moss
says...
3:52pm Fri 10 Feb 12
hairy mary wrote:The council currently have slightly more than £2m in reserve funds which is just about the minimum level that is acceptable. This is contingency funding in case of any major problems which arise unexpectedly and is not generally considered for use in each year's budget.
try lower wages for council leaders would be a good start
As far as council leaders' wages goes, the Labour councillors all took a pay freeze for the whole of last year and will do so again this year. It is understood that the Conservative councillors briefly froze their allowances for the elections last May before taking the increase. Labour reduced the allowances bill for councillors by £23,000 last year when we took control and the current leader of the council takes a much lower salary at HBC than the £43,000 per year figure claimed by ex-leader Peter Britcliffe during his tenure.
By reorganising the administration, we have managed to plough more money back into each township than was previously available. For example, last year Rishton had £12k for its councillors to spend on village projects but that has increased to nearly £20k under Labour.
People don't necessarily need to be laid off to save money and a lot of tightening up has yielded the same level of service for a lower cost in most departments.
Elegant1
says...
12:00pm Sun 12 Feb 12
Councillors are now paid around £15.000pa for carrying out a function which was previously carried out by those whos concerns were purely altruistic. Not only are we paying them wages and expenses we are also funding a pension contribution as well.
We cannot afford the luxury of these entitlements for what basically is a 13 hour a week occupation.
Expenses yes wages No!
Elegant1
says...
12:13pm Sun 12 Feb 12
Also if you are in a majority on a Council why were the conservatives allowed to claim any increases in wages?
If it is good enough for the public to have their wages frozen it should, I would have thought be good enough for councillors?
Cllr Ken Moss
says...
1:49pm Sun 12 Feb 12
k
I'm not entirely sure where you have your figures from however, the 35 councillors at HBC are certainly not claiming anywhere near the £15k per year that you quoted, there aren't really any expenses left to claim apart from mileage (which most of us don't have justification to claim as almost all meetings takes place in Accrington) and we don't get a pension.
The basic salary for a Labour councillor is just under £4,500 per year and it takes up around 3 hours every single day. For such a gravy train there is hardly anyone who actually wants the job, no one is queueing up to be a candidate at election time.
Izanears says...
3:40pm Thu 9 Feb 12