Devon County Council pass controversial budget
A controversial budget making cuts of more than £28m to Devon County Council’s spending has been passed at a full council vote.
The budget outlines several significant cuts to the council’s services including the provision of day centres, residential children’s homes and the closure of youth clubs run by Devon’s youth service.
At a meeting on Thursday, the Conservative-led council was widely criticised by opposition councillors for making spending cuts in these areas.
The council has also confirmed that council tax will rise for the first time in four years by an average of £22 per household.
After long debate, amendments proposed by Liberal democrats Alan Connett and Brian Greenslade and Labour's Jill Owen to guarantee funding for some of these services were rejected at vote.
Consultation is ongoing as part of the review of many of these services and the confirmation of the budget does not mean that the services will certainly be closed.
Under pressure from reduced funding from government this year’s reduction of £28m will be followed by a further cut of £49m in 2015 and another £25m in 2016, for a total reduction of £110m by 2017.
This follows cuts of £100m already made to the council’s spending over the last four years.
Introducing the budget Council Leader John Hart said: “This has been a difficult budget to construct, reducing the spending of this council by another £28m.
“However in 2015 we are expected to have to reduce our budgets even further, by another £49m and in 2016 by another £25m.
“This will mean that the services offered to the people of Devon will have to be dramatically reduced.
“I did say to councillors at the beginning of this budget round that anyone wanting to spend more on any budget line needs to tell us which budget line they are happy to reduce to pay for it.”
Mr Hart also criticised the central government for its approach to local government.
“The news in the early autumn that the balancing of the nation’s economy was going to take longer and that local government had to contract even further was not good for the people of Devon” said Mr Hart.
He continued: “[if the government] gave local authorities more money, responsibility and flexibility we could get better value from what is spent in our country and our county.
“This is what re-wiring local government is all about; give power to local government enact localism.
“The Government talks about localism but does not implement it. We have far too much control from the centre on what we do.”
Mr Hart concluded: “ We must support the old, the young and the vulnerable but we must do it in a more cost effective way.
“We have things we must do by law, we can and will do what is statutory but have to review all non-statutory services because of the severe reduction in funding.
“Our finances our stretched and we will need all the people of our county to work with us in community activities to deliver some or all of the services that we will no longer be able to do ourselves.
“Every extra pound spent this year, will result in an extra pound needing to be removed in next year's budget. Every pound taken from reserves weakens our capacity to be able to manage any future disastrous events as we are already low for a council of this size.”
However Councillor Alan Connett, leader of the Liberal Democrat Group, accused the cuts of being motivated by ideology, he said: “We all know the budget that has been presented is not about rewiring public services so much as unplugging them –
“He wants to unplug youth services in Devon, he wants to unplug day care in Devon he wants to unplug residential care in Devon and he wants to unplug most of the highways so they won’t have any decent surface to traverse across
“It isn’t a budget about Devon; it is a budget about being Conservative. Conservatives don’t like local government or public service and they are using the reduction in public expenditure as a ruse to do what they want to do.”
Cllr Connett also accused the Conservatives of overseeing “The floating down of a dark cloak of secrecy over county hall.”
Mr Connett continued: “Over the last few cabinet meetings we’ve seen decisions being made which effectively rely the decision making down to cabinet members away from the light of scrutiny and away from the process of a full council debate so members can’t see what’s being done and it puts it beyond challenge.”
Cllr Connett proposed that extra funding should be found for highways, the youth service and other services by taking money from the council’s reserves.
Mr Connett also suggested that money could be raised by cutting funding to the council’s public relations budget, public health and through the sale of Larkebeare House and County Hall.
Labour Group leader, Jill Owen, however suggested that dipping into council reserves would be “irresponsible” and they would not support the Liberal Democrats amendment for this reason.
While Cllr Owen also supported protecting some of the council’s services notably the Blossom Corner children’s home in Exeter she admonished Cllr Connett for his comments, she said: “I don’t think facetiousness is the right tone for this debate to be honest, which is what we’ve just been hearing [from Cllr Connett].
“I think this is a very sad day for the people of Devon and I hope there is nobody who is here in this chamber who is taking any kind of pleasure in setting this budget.”
Cllr Owen also expressed sympathy for the difficulty of setting the budget: “this has been a difficult budget it really has particularly when the government has treated us with contempt in terms of delaying announcements and so on.
“So to some extent, Cllr Hart, we sympathise with you, but it is your government and it is a government that is supported by the liberal democrats so you have to take your share of the blame.”
“What we would take issue with is that you have instigated a number of very serious reviews of day care centres, residential homes the youth service.
“You’ve had a so called consultation exercise but in fact as we all know the reductions involved in those budget heads are built into the budget.
“So the whole issue of consultation seems to be a bit of a sick joke, because it’s happening anyway no matter what anyone says to you about it.”
Following Cllr Owen’s statement several conservative councillors stressed that the consultation process was ongoing and that if not closed the money would have to be found elsewhere in the budget.
After an extended debate no amendments were added to the budget.
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