The Conservative opposition on Salford City Council have moved for a true Zero Increase for the City taxpayers.
The first lesson which Labour and the other Opposition Parties need to learn is what zero means. When the council tax bill lands on the doormat there should be no increase from last year – Labour’s does not! It is higher.
To achieve a true zero council tax bill, extra savings of £774,000 had to be found. We found this extra saving which implemented would have resulted in a TOTAL Council Tax Freeze. Labour and the new Independent Group voted against this!
In total we found an extra £2.3m of savings. Including:
Chief Executives Directorate
Non-replacement of post of Director of Marketing and Communications £80K
Ice Rink & Proms in the Park - budget to break even £300K. [We would not touch Community Events]
Tourism & Corporate marketing £209k
Life in Salford - reduction of printing & delivering costs. Look for private advertising £25k making a total of £614k Savings.
Children’s Services
Additional Savings through the structural review and additional Income making a total of £175k savings
Community Health and Social Care
Neighbourhood Management to be streamlined.
Target efficiencies in Welfare Rights Budget.
Aim to make the Working Class Movement Library self funding. Total of £291k savings
Reduction of management fees to Salford Community Leisure – potential efficiency savings of £491k.
Customer and Support Services
A lot has been said about the losing of the Biscuits but it cost around £70K. on top of that we spend £40k on drinking fountains extra saving could be found.
Other savings across directorate of around 30k
Sustainable Regeneration
Urban Vision management fee further reduction £125k
Housing £70k
Cross cutting Issues
Think efficiency through acceleration of management structures, office accommodation, home working, ICT common functions, and collaboration with other councils for procurement and shared services - extra saving of £200k
Other measures
General housekeeping across all six directorates £60k
Strict management of consultancy fees across directorates £500K
Deletion of post of Executive Support Members £49k making a total of £609K
savings
What would we do with these savings?
Freeze council tax at its current rate Labour and the new Independent Party voted against this!
A 2% discount off the total Council Tax Bill for all tax payers of 65 or over starting this year. Unfortunately this was also voted down by Labour and the new Independent Party. Andy commented ‘We felt this section of our residents deserved extra assistance these are the people, who have in the past been hit hardest by council tax rises. They have seen their pensions raided by Labour, by the then Chancellor Gordon Brown and again under his Premiership their savings have dwindled. We intended to start reversing this trend by introducing this discount’
Increase by £150,000 the budget for snow clearance.
The big concern with all residents is the state of our roads. Labour intend to give some extra money to Urban Vision but in addition to this, we would give the eight community committees an extra £50,000 each to spend on highway maintenance. ‘Who knows better which roads in their area need repairing, Urban Vision or local residents? This is typical of Labour who do not trust the people’
This is a budget for all the people of Salford it protects essential front line services…it calls for valid and achievable reductions in non essential spending and provides a total freeze on the council tax bill.
