Fighting for Fairness… but Who is doing the Fighting?

The Manchester City Council Leader’s Blog is an interesting piece. Called ‘Fighting for Fairness’, it is about the recent Council Executive meeting that spent most of that meeting addressing cuts to local swimming pools and libraries.

From the title and text, you would think that it was the Council that was fighting to keep services open, NOT the 1000s of Manchester residents that signed, marched, occupied, lay down in roads and attended council meetings.

Its unlikely that any pictures will emerge of the council leader addressing crowds, loudspeaker in hand, urging them to fight cuts to local services.

And its easy to jab Labour over these issues but not so helpful.

Its more helpful to ask questions:

Why has the Levenshulme pool not been built? When campaigners fought to keep their baths open in 2011, the council were happy for people to think the pool will be open this year. What guarantee is there that other promised pools will open in 2015?

Why are local libraries under threat anyway? Why didn’t the Council plan ahead in 2011? If that seems unfair, Manchester Central Library, costing £48 million in refurbishment, is to share a new award of nearly £1million with Birmingham Library. Someone planned ahead for Central Library. Whilst it is good news, its more money for large capital projects whilst local services go to the wall.

Where is the new thinking on how to keep council services open? York Council is experimenting with creating a mutual to run its services instead of cutting services or getting volunteer’s to run libraries.

It’s a sad day when a Labour Council takes on board the Big Society model of service delivery.

There are other ways of addressing changes in local council services in Manchester.

Watch this space.

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Comment: Libraries Consultation Session in Longsight. Well...

Its currently consultation season in Manchester.

To deal with the £80 million cut to its finances from central government, Manchester City Council has decided that cuts to library and leisure services are amongst its preferred option choices.

For libraries, that consultation runs until April 17^th 2013 and consists of a questionnaire and a series of public meetings.

I went to the first of two sessions which covered the ‘central’ area which includes Central Libraries, Longsight, Hulme and Moss Side.

Though the fate of libraries and pools have been the subject passion and attention, it was disappointing that I was only one of 3 people in attendance at this session to hear the Head of Libraries and his deputy run through their tentative plans for libraries in the city.

They seem to be proposing various types of libraries in the city. Where facilities are to be cut, it is suggested there maybe community libraries.

Community libraries will

• Be run by volunteers
• Have access to main book stock and  library system IT
• Have a buddy library (with staff from the buddy library possibly working 7 hours per week in the community library)

Libraries are willing to hear other ideas/ variations BUT their overwhelming goals are to cut costs and have as wide a geographical reach as possible in a ‘sustainable network’.

If community groups raised additional funds from other sources then this would/ could alter what resources that library may have in it such as cultural activities, homework clubs, advice surgeries. 

But its up to the communities.

I took the opportunity to ask about Hulme library. It was confirmed that the library plans are to ‘move the service’ to Moss Side Leisure Centre but this will be settled finally  after the consultation period. The Head of libraries said that they would be looking at a multi-purpose venue such as at Wythenshawe Forum.

The Head of Libraries said that the new Hulme facilities would not be a ‘drop-in’ service but could not confirm what level of service or staffing would be likely. He was also unable to confirm how long after the consultation, staffing levels and service would be settled.

It didn’t occur to me to ask about the Power House Moss Side library until after I’d gone. That seems to be a different kettle of fish altogether, but that is also up for review.  

For myself I left feeling unconvinced by the whole thing and said that I thought that the lack of two way feedback to ideas submitted meant that communities did not have the chance to develop ideas in any meaningful way within the consultation process (although that’s not to say it doesn’t/ isn’t happening). In addition, it wasn’t clear from Libraries what resources were available for communities  were thinking of taking over a facility, though it did come to light that some support would be possible.

The second public session covering the central area is tomorrow, if you have any questions or concerns, go to the meeting, fill out a questionnaire, see what you think.

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Comment: Manchester City Council voting for Christmas

Wednesday is the meeting of Manchester City Council’s Executive where the Budget cuts 2013-15 will be discussed.

More precisely its Wednesday 13 February 2013 Time: 10.00 am  Venue: Committee Room 11, Level 1, Town Hall.

The Green Party is going along. We are interested to see what they have to say about the cuts in services particularly with regard to libraries and swimming pools.  

The Council says that those swimming pools and libraries services under threat are going to come back in a few years.

We don’t believe it.  

Those facilities are not coming back in any recognizable form.

Why are we so sceptical?  Because of something the council writes in its own Budget Response Document 2013/15. In it (point 51), the council asks its officers to “analyse the Council’s budget position beyond 2014/15 given that funding is expected to fall whilst demand for services will continue to rise “.

That analyse predicts that by 2018/19 the only services that will be able to be funded by the council will be Social Care, Environment, Transport and Capital.

That means that Neighbourhood Services, which includes libraries, swimming pools, culture and parks will be completely cut. So how are those pools and libraries going to be run?

That prediction is only 5 years away.

Instead of engaging with local communities concerned about their parks, pools and libraries, those campaigners are dismissed as “a handful of noisy protesters”, their activities as ‘stunts’. Attempts by communities to engage the council on talks to take over buildings or services, such as in Hulme, have met with silence.

Local Labour councillors will throw their hands in the air and say that there is nothing they can do, they have to vote for the cuts.

Don’t you believe it.

Labour councillors from all over the country are organising against the cuts. The Labour Councillors against the cuts website lists an initial 25 councillors who are not prepared to vote for cuts to local services.

Manchester Green Party applauds their stand. That is principle.

Its unfortunate that  not a single one of the 86 Manchester Labour councillors is on that list. We predict you won’t find one in the future either.

The Budget response (60) also says “Only the Council has the leadership capacity to protect the City's future, and chart a new direction”.

They may have the capacity, they don’t have the ideas.

If you don’t believe us, go to the committee meeting on Wednesday.

The Green Party.

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Manchester’s Surestart Consultations: A flawed argument

Hulme Greens recently commented on the news that the Council was to cut funding to Manchester’s Sure Start services. These cuts were happening against a back drop of high local child poverty and riots in the city.

As the Council moves forward with its plans, it has started a consultation process outlining its reasons for the Sure Start cuts, proposals for the future, a questionnaire and series of public events.

The extensive public consultations are to be commended, with events over 2 months covering most of the Sure Start venues in the city. (It also helpfully published a Directory of Support for Parents and Carers.)

But Manchester City Council’s arguments put forward for the cuts and the scope of the consultations are misleading and ‘unhelpful’. Its ‘Why are we proposing changes?’ page states

“We need to:

• Increase the number of families that access the services available (currently less than a third of families in Manchester)
• Make better use of the buildings we have so they deliver a wider range of services and attract more people to use them
• Identify those families and children who need extra help (especially children aged 0-3 years) more accurately and quickly to ensure that more children enter school ready to thrive, and more families, parents and carers are supported into work. ”

The first line suggests the 40 Sure Start Centres in the city are under-used and inefficient especially as they are used by ‘less than a third of families in Manchester’.

Though open to all families, the POINT of Sure Start is to help the poorest families in society, to help break the cycle of deprivation and it is recognized as an attempt to do so (page 10).

This is especially important as Manchester is recognized as the ‘child poverty capital of Britain’. Framing Sure Start as a service aimed at all families is wrong and the Council is wrong to do so.

The second line specifically mentions the Sure Start buildings above and again in the questionnaires. At the moment, these are exclusively used for Sure Start and related services. This may not be the case by the end of this process and it is important that these buildings primarily do the job they were built for.

The two areas NOT up for negotiation/ consultation are the

• increase in childcare fees (from £126 to £150 per week) by nearly 20%
• reduction of funded childcare provision by 50% to 15 hours per week, the legal minimum.

The combination of these 2 actions will exclude the very families Sure Start was created to support.

Will Manchester City Council makes public what the effects of cutting these services will be and how its proposed outreach service will mitigate these effects?

Having a consultation which leaves out the important aspects of a service so important to the long term health of the city is short sighted and unsafe.

The national concern of the effect the Sure Start cuts will have are especially applicable to Manchester.

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