Clear choices and priorities help the council "balance the books"

Hull City Council's cabinet answers your questions about the budget proposals that have been announced recently.

Why does the council need to save £25m?
You may have heard the local media talking about a projected budget 'shortfall., That is the amount of money by which the council would be short if it carried on spending in the same way as it is today and didn't approve a balanced budget for the new financial year from April 1, 2007. In other words, we cannot plan to live beyond our means.
The way the Government allocates its funding to local councils has changed (and this is important, because for every one pound spent by the Council, 72p of that pound comes from Government funding and only 28p comes from local council-tax payers).
For 2007-08, Hull's funding from the Government has been increased a little, but not by enough to meet the cost of inflation.
Other councils in England are facing similar situations, because they have the same pressures on their spending as Hull City Council.
For instance, as with households across the country, the council's gas and electricity bills are rising. This alone will lead to an extra £4 million on the council's bills for next year.
The demand for our services by the public has increased, but funding from the Government has not increased at the same level. For example, like most other councils in England, we have a growing elderly population. This increases the demand for complex and longer-term social care, which is expensive, but the Government is not providing all the money necessary to fund these services in the way we (and other councils) would like.

How will I be affected as a resident of Hull?
First, the range and quality of front-line council services will not be reduced. The changes that the council's cabinet is proposing have been carefully considered, so they have minimum impact on residents, lives. In fact, services which are a high priority for local people will be improved through extra investment and resources.
The budget proposals were set with the following principles in mind:

• Ensuring that council tax does not rise by more than the rate of inflation.
• Protecting the delivery of front-line services.
• Providing quality services.
• Delivering value for money.
• Offering local people greater choice.

Front-line services such as schools, bin collections, customer service centres (CSCs), libraries, parks and gardens will not be affected by the budget savings.
The cabinet has decided to keep any increase in council tax at a level no higher than inflation (and lower than in the past few years). On average, this will cost Hull's council-tax payers only about an extra 50p a week – less than the cost of a newspaper.
At the same time, there are plans to invest more money in areas that are important to local residents, such as crime prevention, road and pavement repairs, and education.
Cinema-goers may find that Hull Screen (which is the most heavily subsidised cinema in the country) starts to offer three to four nights a week, instead of the full seven nights. Surveys show that there aren't enough people using the cinema every night to make it viable.

How many jobs are going to go at the council?
Any changes to the number of posts in our staffing structures will be carried out mostly in areas that do not affect residents directly. Savings will come from continuing to cut red tape and reducing waste (such as the £3 million saved this year on the cost of using consultants).
There are also some areas in the council where similar services are offered in more than one place. This has to change, as it makes the council inefficient. For instance, if a vulnerable person requires assistance from the council and the NHS, it is better for them to have only one visit to assess their needs, and that only one organisation supplies those services.
About 330 posts will be removed in the coming months. This does not mean that 330 people will be affected. Some of these posts are already vacant, and some due to become vacant will not be filled. These changes will not reduce the scope or quality of front-line services.
As two pounds out of every three that the council spends are on staff wages or salaries, the cost of staffing is important. Most of the council's budget gap will be filled by other types of reductions in our spending, but reducing the overall number of posts has been unavoidable.
If it is possible, the council wants to avoid compulsory redundancies. We expect there to be very few of these, because there are enough staff who are likely to choose to take voluntary severance or early retirement.

Are you privatising the council's museums and leisure centres?
No, we are exploring setting up independent trusts to run them for the council. This will allow the museums and leisure centres to get grants and tax breaks that the council cannot get. Many council services are already operated as trusts, such as the Ferens Art Gallery, and many of our parks, such as Pickering park.

Local schools are getting better, but their results need more improvement in future. Are you cutting their budgets?
No, the schools budget is protected and will be getting another increase this year. Many of the savings in this area of the council are coming from merging the staff teams for children's care services and the local education authority, to create a more effective single service for all local children and young people. This is allowing us to make administrative and managerial savings, by taking out any duplication of work.

When are you reintroducing charges for school meals?
First, it's important to point out that Hull City Council's cabinet does not want to cut all free school meals. Once the current pilot scheme has ended, families or guardians who are claiming benefits can continue to get free school meals for their children. However, cabinet has said that for those families who can afford to pay for school meals, it is appropriate that they do, so that money is not taken from other council services to meet these costs.
Hull City Council is the only council in England to have piloted this scheme and the Government has no clear plans to introduce the scheme, in any other council.
The council cannot afford to wait until it receives the report on the outcomes of the current pilot scheme because it must act quickly to balance next year's budget. If the evaluation of the pilot scheme shows it is essential not to charge for healthy food in order to maintain health and learning benefits for children, the council's cabinet believes that the Government should fund the costs of this for the whole country, and not put the costs on Hull taxpayers.