Category: Blog

Trafford Council  PR 3092    19/06/2014    [For Immediate Release]

Trafford Council to bring forward additional in year savings

Trafford Council is considering further measures to make sure it doesn’t exceed its budget in the current financial year.

Following a review of its budget, it was identified that the financial position it had been forecasting would be worse than expected.  The cost of caring for vulnerable people in the borough, particular the elderly and adults with a learning difficulty have increased considerably compared to previous assumptions.  In addition, demand is much higher than anticipated.

Adult Social Care assumptions are made through a complex financial monitoring process which incorporates individual placement costs, existing service users who may leave the care system and new entrants.  Additional demand was not highlighted in the regular budget monitoring reports and was not incorporated into base assumptions when the budget for this year was set in February.

As a consequence, despite allowing for an £2.1m increase in this service areas budget in 2014/15, the Council must now bring forward additional in year savings to ensure the authority remains in budget.

Leader of the Council, Cllr Sean Anstee, said: “This change in our financial position is disappointing as we already face a difficult task of balancing our budget in 2015/16.  The additional costs arise from our duty to care for some of the most vulnerable people in the borough and we take our responsibilities seriously.  All expenditure is being legitimately incurred and social care is by far the largest area of spend within the Council, of which we have a statutory duty to support.

I have asked for a detailed review into what happened and what lessons can be learned.

The Council must now find ways of saving a considerable amount of money, in the order of up to £6 million, to stay within our set budget for 2014/15.  Options for doing this are currently being formulated and will be considered by Elected Members in the coming months.”

Trafford Council, Marketing and Communications Team, 0161 912 1256.

Trafford, a value for money Council delivering excellent services for our customers. You can find out more about us by visiting www.trafford.gov.uk

Image Source: Trafford Town Hall by Peter McDermott, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

101 sexual assaults including rapes in one year in London alone from taxi and private hire drivers and the Tories with full support of the Lib Dems are relaxing rules.

source: Transport for London

The coalition government are so hell-bent on de-regulation there comes a point when we need to take a stand. What on earth are we doing putting women at risk in this way?

We know there are drivers who shouldn’t be in the role. Rather than tighten up the legislation, the Tories with the full co-operation of the Lib Dems seem so divorced from reality that they’re set on a shocking course that will encourage more of it. It’s appalling

Image source : Photo © Copyright Walter Baxter and licensed for reuse under a cc-by-sa/2.0 Creative Commons Licence.

Paul Wheeler poses an interesting question in the Guardian asking why Chicago has more influence?

Both Chicago and Manchester have about 2.8 million people yet Manchester still struggles to punch its weight on the world stage. Paul Wheeler poses the question as to whether this is to do with Greater Manchester’s dissipated local government with its 10 councils and chief executives all competing with each other, rather than the slim-lined single mayor of Chicago?

Interestingly, the BBC’s Evan Davis is raising the same issue tonight in his ‘Mind the Gap’ programme.

Both argue that we need to be less parochial. I think they’ve got a point, but a better comparison is with the single city council in Birmingham (the UK one). Can it really be said that Greater Manchester is faring badly compared to Birmingham, the UK’s largest council? We’re probably out-performing Birmingham on every single metric. The problem it seems to me is London, the imperial capital with its insatiable greed and self-regard.

Personally, as a person who’s always lived within the M60, I self define as a ‘Manc’, yet I’ve only lived two years of my life within the City Council’s boundary. I’ve never actually called myself a Traffordian; I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who does. I don’t have any sense of loyalty to a place called Trafford; largely because there isn’t such a place. It’s poignant that the place that calls itself ‘The Trafford Centre’ is the epitome of marketing insincerity with plastic columns and domes and an identikit retail offer to be found in every regional centre.

Emotionally, I can see no reason not to combine with Manchester. But until Greater Manchester is allowed the same independence as London, I don’t see us being able to exert our potential whatever the governance arrangements. Whilst we still have to doff our caps to Whitehall, we’re being held back. We won’t be allowed to organise public transport, highways, policing (perhaps a good thing considering the Met’s performance). If we ever are allowed to perform as a mature city region, there will be an argument for new local government structures, but let’s not kid ourselves the 10 councils are the cause of this.

It’s London, damn them!

Links
Paul Wheeler’s Guardian Article
Manchester Evening News Article on the Evan Davis programme

” Our cities offer people the biggest range of economic opportunities. They are home to the most productive parts of the economy and they are places where new ideas are generated, businesses are started and expanded, wages are higher and people’s ambitions can be fulfilled. Our 64 biggest cities are home to over half of the population, 60% of businesses, and nearly three quarters of skilled jobs.

Our task is to bring together the different interests in our country – business, employers and employees, the third sector, our democratic leaders – to build a coalition for national renewal from the bottom up and in the process transform how we govern the country.

Jon Cruddas Labour’s Policy Review
We will not solve our problems from Whitehall

Richard Townshend, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Interesting and perhaps challenging thoughts from Cormac Russell below. Is it a license for councils to walk away? Perhaps it is, but only to do something of a greater benefit, rather than just to simply cut.

Frighteningly, if ‘walking away’ isn’t preceded with, and associated with letting go of reins it’ll be disastrous.

Trafford is showing how not to do it, by withdrawing it’s services and exerting total control over what the community does in it’s place:

• Park groups are being told what they can plant and where to plant them.
• The council are selecting and choosing its ambassadors from the communities to sit on partnerships. 

And it’s not just the Council – the same dynamic applies to health and housing, even voluntary sector professionals – and therein lies the dilemma;  it’s often a fight for survival.