Newcastle City Council approve city-wide cuts - What it means to city services

Newcastle City Council has given final approval to savings plans that will see 40 jobs lost at the civic centre, the cost of school meals increased, and opening hours at the City Library reduced.

Labour council leader Karen Kilgour admitted on Wednesday night that it was “unsustainable” for the local authority to keep cutting spending at such a rate, having already slashed £381 million from its budgets since 2010 and needing to find a total £63 million more by 2028, but said it remained on a stable financial footing and was “striving to deliver more and better services for our residents even when we have to take tough financial decisions”.

Increasing council tax this April by the maximum amount allowed without a referendum, 2.99% plus an additional 2% ringfenced for social care services, equates to an extra £67.04 per year for Band A households, £100.55 for people in Band D properties, and £201.10 for the most expensive Band H.

Other cost-cutting proposals including plans to save £8.3 million in adult social care services through measures to help people become more independent and avoid needing to go into care home, as well as reducing crisis support services to become “time limited and purposeful”, and a further £3.3 million from the amount spent on placements at privately-run children’s care homes.

With the Labour-run city council currently in no overall political control after former leader Nick Kemp and five others left the party last year to become independents, there was speculation in the run up to Wednesday night’s council meeting that the administration may not have the votes to pass the budget.

Civic centre legal chief John Softly had even emailed councillors the evening before to warn that there could be “significant financial, administrative and legal implications” if a budget was not passed by March 11 and that councillors themselves could be held liable for a financial loss to the council if they were found to have engaged in “wilful misconduct”.

Politicians who spoke to the Local Democracy Reporting Service described the intervention as unprecedented and were angered by what some construed as a threat, though in the end Labour did have a majority in the chamber to pass the budget by a 34 to 31 vote.

The Liberal Democrat opposition failed in attempts to amend the budget, which included raising an extra £121,000 from some increased fees to third parties in order to cut proposed rent increases to charities like Citizens Advice Newcastle.

The Lib Dems, whose leader Colin Ferguson accused Labour of not listening to residents and lacking vision for the city, also wanted to get rid of a machine which cleans chewing gum off the streets to instead offer means-tested subsidies for residents struggling to meet the cost of pest control callouts and of replacing stolen or damaged bins.

Meanwhile, Labour councillor Jane Byrne unsuccessfully sought to reverse the council’s plans to shut the City Library from 2pm on Saturdays – a move she said would have helped protect a “safe, warm, and free space in the city centre for people of all ages and backgrounds”.

Government spending cuts under Labour and moves like the cut to winter fuel allowances came in for repeated criticism from opposition councillors, with Coun Ferguson claiming it was “not only naive but reckless” to believe that Labour would restore more lost council funding once it came to power after years of austerity.

Green Party councillor Nick Hartley, who represents Byker, also questioned multi-million pound council spending over the years on the likes of Eldon Square and the Crowne Plaza hotel.

Labour members were also left incensed by claims the city was in a state of “managed decline”, with council cabinet member Dan Greenhough urging colleagues not to talk down the city and instead celebrate new jobs being created by companies like Accord and Siemens.

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Paul Frew, Labour’s cabinet member for finance, said that this year marked a step change after “15 years of neglect” from previous governments.

Coun Frew added that plans to charge a flat £3 rate for each school dinner the council provides, with schools having discretion over how much of that cost is then passed onto families, in order to generate a further £621,000 of revenue was required as rising prices had not been reflected in previous years.

He also said that the 4.99% council tax rise was done reluctantly but was the position most areas across the country were in, adding that Newcastle had a “very robust and generous” council tax support scheme to protect its most vulnerable residents from the hike.