Council warns of £100m budget cuts (From The Northern Echo)

Council warns of £100m budget cuts

9:46am Monday 26th July 2010 in

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JOB losses and massive spending reductions are expected as another of the region’s councils revealed it’s is facing £100m budget cuts.

Richard Flinton, chief executive of North Yorkshire County Council, admitted frontline services would be affected as the authority tries to cope with a predicted 25 per cent fall in Government grants.

He said the authority was facing an increasing demand for services while, at the same time, budgets were being slashed.

The news comes as Durham County Council revealed it is facing up to £100m of cuts over the next four years, while Darlington Borough Council is looking to save £22m.

Mr Flinton said: “This is certainly the most challenging time I have ever known in my career in local government, but it is a challenge which I am determined the council will rise to.”

He said he was acutely aware of the human cost of job losses and the council would do everything it could to avoid compulsory redundancies.

The council’s annual net budget is £350m and a review of almost every department is under way to see where cuts can be made.

Mr Flinton warned there was not a lot of fat that can be trimmed off due to the fact that the council already had lower than average spending, council tax and Government grant figures.

Council leader John Weighell said: “We won’t know exactly what the cuts will be until after the comprehensive spending review at the end of October, but at the moment those are the kind of figures we are looking at.

“We are looking to minimise the effects both on the public and on staff.

“We would obviously like to maintain the services in respect of the most vulnerable members of society, like the elderly and children.”

Councillor John Blackie, lead spokesman for the North Yorkshire Independents on the authority, said: “I think the coalition Government is moving far too fast in trying to reduce the deficit and I’m not sure they have any comprehension how these dramatic reductions will affect the more rural areas of England.

“I’m very concerned that, in trying to meet the Government requirements to save money, the rural areas of the community will feel the negative effects of the cuts.”

‘Region’s authorities will be the hardest hit’

NORTH-EAST towns and cities including Middlesbrough, York and Newcastle will be hardest hit by public sector cuts, figures showed.

Middlesbrough has the second highest percentage of workers employed in the public sector in England, with 43 per cent of its workforce.

It is closely followed by Newcastle, which is joint third at 38 per cent, and York is joint 11th with 34 per cent of its workforce employed in the public sector.

Sunderland is the city that is most likely to escape the worst impact of public sector cuts which threaten to blight the region, with 29 per cent of workers in the public sector, the figures from accountancy firm UHY Torgersens showed.

The Sunderland firm, which compared the concentration of public sector workers in the top 50 towns and cities of England, said that compared to the South, northern towns generally have a higher concentration of public sector workers, meaning they were more likely to suffer from cuts in public spending.

UHY partner Martin Johnson said: “Many parts of the North have traditionally depended on jobs from the public sector, as previous governments attempted to regenerate the local economy in areas that were suffering from high levels of unemployment.

“The last thing the North needs is to see the North-South gap grow even wider.”