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| Picture by George Hodan |
Yesterday the poorly performing Coalition government
announced its Spending
Review for 2015/16. The centre piece of the review was a
further £11.5 billion of spending cuts, including £2.6bn from the Communities Department.
It is expected that this
will translate to an average 10% cut to local council budgets.
Manchester and Manchester
City Council has fared badly from previous rounds. Under the current government, during 2011/13 the Council had been forced to make cuts of £170
million. The last Spending
Review, taking effect during 2014/15 an additional £80 million is removed from local
budgets.
In practice, in Manchester,
this has directly led to almost 3000 jobs lost from the Council, closure of Youth
Services, SureStart Centres, Day Care Centres, libraries, swimming pools,
public toilets as well as cuts to Childrens’ Services, Adult Services,
Neighbourhood Services, grants for voluntary organisations and funds which
support disabled people to remain independent in their communities. And this is
not a complete list.
What will an additional
10% cut mean to Manchester?
For the people of this
city, up until recently, the hope was to hold out for a change of government,
to hope that an incoming Labour government would put a stop to the austerity
that is strangling our local communities. But Labour has accepted the
Coalition’s argument and has committed itself to keeping to the current government’s
public spending plans. It
leaves The Green Party as one of the few national parties making an argument against
austerity.
For the past few years Manchester City Council has reacted to the budget reductions by
For the past few years Manchester City Council has reacted to the budget reductions by
- investing in capital projects (Manchester Central Library, the National Football Museum, Manchester Airport)
- investing in the unusual (the Alicia Keys concert, the Australian Commonwealth Swimming team)
- cutting services to the most vulnerable in the city
There is an argument to be
had in Manchester on the Council’s spending priorities.
Manchester Green Party
Chair, Deyika Nzeribe reacted to the Spending Review saying “Further cuts to
the Council budgets will be disastrous given what has already been lost. But
after 2 rounds of significant cuts, the reaction of the Labour Council is poor.
Funding the Australian Swimming Team while cutting Manchester libraries and
swimming pools is one of several bad decisions that we can’t afford.
And instead of just
concentrating on how best to reduce its services, why isn’t the Council using
its fundraising expertise to support and expand what is left of the voluntary
sector in the city so it can take over where the Council can no longer manage?
It clearly can do it for buildings, why not services for people that need it?”