£30m cuts in budget could lead to 150 City Hall jobs lost
A COUNCIL in Yorkshire is proposing more than £30m in budget cuts over the next three years in a move that could see more than 150 jobs cut at the local authority.
Bradford Council’s leader Coun Susan Hinchliffe has also said that continuing government funding cuts mean the authority has no choice but to raise council tax by 1.99 per cent from next April.
Budget cuts of £7.1m are planned for 2018/19, followed by cuts of £23.6m in 2019/20, with a potential loss of 153 posts. The council’s current net budget for 2017/18 is £375.2m.
The plans include cutting £1m from the street-cleaning budget in 2018/19 with £950,000 in cuts to library services planned during the same period. Cuts to the museums and galleries budget of £260,000 are planned in 2019/20.
Outlining the council’s proposed financial plan for 2018/19 to 2020/21, Coun Hinchliffe said: “As a council, since 2010 we’ve reduced our spending by £256m. In this year’s budget, we are faced with a new gap of £7.1m for 2018/19, and another £23.6m gap in 2019/20.
“We’ve tried to prevent compulsory redundancies since the Government’s austerity programme started, however in recent years compulsory redundancies have become unavoidable.”
She added: “Many of these cuts have already been started last year in these services but with each successive year the cuts have to continue to get us to a balanced budget in 2020. For example we were clear last year that we need to take £8m each year from the adult social care budget. That challenge continues with another £8m coming out this year.”
Coun Hinchliffe also announced plans to invest £750,000 a year in house-building and development in Bradford, encouraging the growth of more business premises and investing in assets to generate income for the council.
She said: “These are challenging times, but our ambition remains as high as ever for this place and all of its people and communities. We have huge potential in Bradford, we have incredible, unique assets in our city, towns and villages across the district. So we are going for growth and want to support businesses locally to achieve growth which we can all share in.”
The budget proposals will be discussed by the council’s executive group on December 5 before going out to public consultation until January 28.
In recent years compulsory redundancies have become unavoidable. Bradford Council leader Coun Susan Hinchliffe.