Somerset County Council approves £43m of budget cuts

Much as I may have felt this was largely a foregone conclusion there was still something rather ghastly about the actual event itself.


The BBC reports it here.

I have some sympathy for the arts in Somerset who are having a 100% cut in budget, and which has been well covered locally and even managed a segment on Newsnight last night, which is well worth a viewing.  The main revelation from that was that Ken Maddock used to be into amateur dramatics, even appearing in a performance of Waiting for Godot.  The mind boggles.


But this was all a smokescreen to the main event which was the massive, wholesale slashing of services in Somerset.  No area will remain untouched with Childrens and Young Peoples Directorate taking a massive 65-75% cut in budget.  Highways maintenance is taking a 50% cut with an extra 90,000 potholes predicted over three years and a £200 million maintenance bombshell to be made up in the future by another adminstration presumably when Ken and his clique have cleared off back to Mendip.  Every area of civic life is being damaged by these ill judged, panic led measures all because Ken Maddock is too boneheaded to accept additional debt at a time of falling tax revenue as a necessary evil.  That they are being taken a full month ahead of the final settlement by central government makes it difficult to fathom the haste.  Maybe they are in hurry because they just have to make sure they get the redundancy notices out for staff for Christmas Day.  Unfortunately that's not a joke and is in fact the timetable released by UNISON for the redundancy notices for staff at SCC.    


When the full effect of the national cuts is felt there will be some in Somerset who will disproportionally hit.  Ken Maddock and the Chief Executive, Sheila Wheeler, make great play on protecting the vulnerable but it is difficult to see how this achievable in any meaningful sense against the overall backdrop of a cross the board reduction in services.  The Cabinet have already been told they are in breach of breach of equalities and human rights legislation with their proposals for adult social care to little effect.  

There is more to come with another meeting on the 22nd December to decide a further £30 million of cuts and this may present the best opportunity for a reversal for the Cabinet.  This meeting will deal with the capital borrowing and there are Tory councilors who are opposed to this extra cut.  

It's not over yet and regardless of the outcome of the next meeting it is absolutely vital for us to oppose the Tories and their idealogically driven cuts in every arena we can.  They need to be held to account and to take resposibility for the choices they have made.     

 

UNISON march and rally - 6th November

The local branch of UNISON are holding a rally and march on 6th November in opposition to the cuts at Somerset County Council.  The rally will be held at 10.30am in French Weir with the march at 11.00am. 

This needs to be publicised at widely as possible to try and get a good turnout to show the Conservative group the level of opposition in Taunton and Somerset to the cuts they are proposing. 

I will be writing a fuller post on the Comprehensive Spending Review and the actual cuts in Somerset soon but for the moment here is a link to the letter that the Chief Exec at SCC sent out to all staff.  Here is the UNISON response.

More after the break.

Southwest One makes pre-tax loss of £16.5 million

As I mentioned at the bottom of my last post Southwest One has posted a pre-tax loss of £16.5 million.  This is not good news and as much as I think that Southwest One was never a good idea at any point I would rather it didn't start losing money hand over fist as I'm a little vague about how losses are distributed.  SW One is 75% owned by IBM with the remaining 25% split between SCC, Taunton Deane and Avon & Somerset Constabulary.  Both Taunton Deane & SCC seem to be suggesting they will not be directly paying for mistakes/losses by SW One which is probably technically correct.  I'm sure the truth is somewhat more complicated.  SCC had the following to say:  

Somerset council said it would not cost extra money as it was a fixed contract.
David Huxtable, the councillor responsible for resources at the county council, said: "I don't have any concerns or fears about the ability of the company to deliver our services because we made sure we partnered with huge international business and I have security in that.
"We asked people to bid to run our services at less cost to us and that's what they did.
"It may be that they over or under bid for the contract but I feel that is their problem, and not necessarily ours."

Note the Not necessarily ours.  Well that's alleviated all my concerns then - good job David.  I suppose if the worst happens you can always suggest selling County Hall again.

Taunton Deane charged £15k for 'widespread' accounting failures relating to SW One

BBC Somerset are reporting that Taunton Deane have been charged an additional £15k by the Audit Commission for widespread failures relating to the Southwest One contract.  SCC are also due to receive a "charge" for the same reason; the fee has yet to be decided.  I've included the main body of the report below the break along with some thoughts on Southwest One.