Tough decisions for budget

It's that time of year again when local councils have to set their budget for the coming year. At this time there are always some very difficult decisions to be made and this year is no exception!
Most of the money the council has to spend on services comes from the government. The government grant this year is £25 million pounds less than the council needs to carry on spending as it did this year. Clearly the council cannot spend what it does not have and so we are looking at making savings. We are focusing our efforts to cut costs by becoming more efficient in the way we do things, by cutting red tape, removing duplication.
We have focused our efforts in the following areas:

1. Making sure the council tax stays at the rate of inflation. This will help those people who rely upon fixed incomes such as pensioners, by making sure that council tax does not go up more than their pension rise.
2. Continuing to re-allocate funds to areas that are important to residents, such as crime prevention, education and road and pavement repairs.
3. The scale of efficiency savings we must make means that we need to reduce the amount of money we spend on staff costs. There are a number of ways in which this can be addressed. Firstly by continuing to reduce the amount of money wasted on employing consultants. Secondly, vacant posts and some that are becoming vacant will not be filled. In addition, the council will be offering staff the option of taking voluntary redundancy.
4. We are proposing that charges for school meals be re-instated. Free meals will still be provided for those who can't afford them but we believe that those people who can afford to pay to feed their children should contribute to school meal costs.

It is also worth mentioning that my colleagues and I are working hard to ensure that the savings we have to make don't affect the delivery of frontline services, which will hardly be affected at all. There is further information on the council's budget inside this edition of Hull in print.

Cllr Carl Minns
Leader, Hull City Council