Bury Council has today published a draft Programme of Savings 2013-14 to 2014-15.

Because of a number of changes it now estimates that it needs to save an extra £8.7 Million, which is on top of the £17.7 million that was included in its current three year plan for savings.

The full copy of the paper is here.

We (opposition councillors) have only been given this today, but from what I have seen so far this include:

– £700,000 extra fees and charges
– £820,000 of staff reductions (not filling vacant posts)
– £800,000 of changes in terms and conditions to staff (not clear what)
– tripling the cuts to support for vulnerable people to nearly £4,000,000 – despite this is what people say is our number 1 priority – this includes more cuts to Children’s Centres and home to school travel for children (over £1/2 million in total on the latter)
– abolishing the popular Park Rangers service completely
– doing away with free 15 mins parking in the Town Centre, and doing away with free Sunday parking
– even more cuts to Libraries – now totalling almost £1 million
– cutting grants to charities by £120,000

I think all of us appreciate that we live in difficult economic times, but cutting front line services like this just seems like completely the wrong thing to do.

More news to follow!
Tim

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