CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE POORHOUSE AS LABOUR COUNCIL EMBARKS ON EVEN MORE CUTS

NOTEBOOK by BILL HEANEY

Spin doctors call it “savings” but it’s public service cuts by any other name.

£2.3m savings have been agreed by the Labour administration in phase one of West Dunbartonshire Council’s “approach to closing budget gap”, the press release states.

In other words, the slash and burn boys and girls on the big salaries have had the scalpels out again.

The poor, the disadvantaged, the hungry, unemployed and deprived will continue to suffer and we will struggle along in a sink town where the sick, the lame and the lazy buy drugs from the dealers in the High Street and town centre.

And there is no suggestion that the money the self important officials and councillors pull down in inappropriate salaries should be adjusted in any way given the state we are in.

The £2.3million figure has been agreed in a bid to close the Council’s £17 million budget gap, we are told, despite the fact that central government could wipe out these debts at the stroke of a pen.

This plundering of our council tax cash is being done in two phases “to ensure spending is reduced during one of the most challenging financial environments ever faced by local authorities”.

The budget gap, created by the SNP controlled Council in Dumbarton over five years, and the SNP government in Edinburgh over 16 years, represents the difference between the Council’s income, including Scottish Government funding, and the cost of delivering services to communities.

It is made up of public money that shouldn’t have been spent or was foolishly squandered over these two periods.

The Council, of course, doesn’t entirely agree with my take on this.

They maintain that the state we are in is compounded by a range of external factors including increased inflation, the cost of utilities, fuel and materials.

At the meeting, councillors discussed a finance update report which included the first tranche of options developed by officers in order to help close the Council’s anticipated budget gap of almost £17million.

Following discussion, options which will generate £1.356 million were approved, in addition to  management adjustments amounting to £973,000.

They haven’t told the public what these options are and The Dumbarton Democrat hasn’t been allowed to ask them because these gauleiters have banned us from speaking to them.

They think we should submit a Freedom of Information request and wait weeks or months for them to come up with the answer.

Labour councillors Martin Rooney and Michelle McGinty — a budget that keeps us in poverty.

So, we do our best in the circumstances which are anti-democratic, vindictive and in breach of the Freedom of Speech rules, which applied until we told one of them to bugger off when they tried to throw us out of a meeting.

Changes agreed at the meeting include a 20 per cent reduction to the management fee paid to the arm’s length West Dunbartonshire Leisure Trust and an adjustment to the general school budget within education, which pays for learning and teaching resources.

That involves taking money from one pocket and putting it into another.

A total of £720,000 will continue to be available and distributed across the area’s schools for these items and work will continue with Head Teachers to ensure their priorities are met.

No change there then.

In addition, a proposal to reduce management time allocated to senior teachers to undertake non-teaching work such as planning in primary schools was agreed. Core teaching staff required to deliver the curriculum will continue to be maintained.

Teachers will be given less time to do more work in the classroom.

That will go down well in the staff rooms, I’m sure.

A two-week period of closure over Christmas and New Year for non-essential Council services will be progressed for 24/25.

That means it will be repeated. Parents will be delighted and I don’t think.

The full report detailing all options and adjustments is available on the CMIS section of the Council website.

Those citizens who are not IT literate – or those who soon won’t have access to a computer such as the citizens of Balloch, where the library is earmarked for closure and the number of computers available there is being reduced from eight to just three – may have some difficulty in doing that.

One option is in the field of social care where the useless so-called Health and Social Care Partnership are being persuaded to take a bigger share of the money allocated to look after children in care.

A mix of elected and unelected people who appear to care more about money than how the services they are responsible for impact on people – care homes, children’s homes and the like – they must be the most ineffective committee on the council.

The savings generated by accepting the options and adjustments last night, combined with the financial benefit from the reduction to the Council’s employer pension contribution rate – which is estimated to provide a benefit of around £5.332million over the next four years, mean that a further £9.313million will be required for the Council to deliver a balanced budget.

A second tranche of savings options is currently under development to be presented for consideration on March 6. More cuts are on the way.

Council Leader, Councillor Martin Rooney said: “The decisions taken at this meeting were extremely challenging for everyone involved. Nobody wants to make cuts but it is our responsibility to help steer the Council through what is one of the most significant financial challenges known to Local Government and without additional funding, we have been left with no choice.

“Sadly, early indications from COSLA [the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities] are that the funding we will receive is a likely [sic] to represent a cut to our core revenue funding. This is much worse than even I had expected as there is no inflationary uplift to support pay and other cost pressures.

“I continue to urge the Scottish Government to revisit their funding to our Council and for the people of West Dunbartonshire [sic]. Without government support we will not be abler [sic] to maintain the current level of services that local people have come to rely on.

“The savings agreed today have reduced our budget gap to approximately £9.3million but we still have a lot of work to do over the coming weeks to ensure that we deliver a balanced budget in March, as per our statutory requirement.”

Yet Martin Rooney sat tight-lipped through and after the effect of the cuts in services was explained to him at the Open Forum session of the meeting.

Depute Council Leader, Councillor Michelle McGinty, added: “We know the people of West Dunbartonshire are still struggling and that is why we place so much emphasis on our cost of living supports.

“Unfortunately we continue to see huge rises in the costs we face, and with no increase in funding to offset this, we are forced to accept changes to the way services are delivered in order to reduce our costs.

“The financial situation is dire but we are doing all we can to help and support residents by sharing the costs across all council services to avoid disproportionate cuts.”

And the band played Believe it if You Like since Cllr McGinty gave us an indication as to how our elected representatives feel about it when she walked out of the meeting during the contribution from teachers’ representative Jim Halfpenny, which was not a good look for Labour.