Crisis support teams, beds for the homeless, school meal subsidies and a service providing essential household items for people living in poverty are all set to suffer under spending cuts at Newcastle City Council.
Civic centre chiefs have unveiled a swathe of new cutbacks aimed at saving £15.4m next year and almost £60m by 2027. Residents are also set to be hit with a 4.99% council tax hike, schools in the city will be charged more for school meals, and charges for car parking, garden waste collection, and replacement wheelie bins will increase.
The Labour-run council, which will have slashed £369m from 2010 by the end of its current financial year, said it had been left with “tough” decisions due to cuts in the funding it receives from the Government, as well as “unavoidable” pressures caused by high inflation levels and ever-rising demand for social care services.
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Proposals unveiled on Friday afternoon include:
- Ceasing the council’s crisis support service, which has a £100,000 annual provision to help people suffering emergencies through circumstances including domestic violence and financial abuse;
- Cutting the budget of a supporting independence scheme, which provides access to basic items such as beds and cookers to people in poverty, from £457,000 to £100k;
- Halving the amount of money spend on homelessness services by October 2024, including by reducing the number of available beds from the current 734;
- Removal of an Intensive Family Intervention Team, which works with families whose children are at risk of being taken into care;
- Increasing the maximum contribution that a person can be asked to pay towards their own adult social care package from £400 to £440 per week;
- Reducing a subsidy for the city’s school meal service by £537,000 and charging schools an extra 50p per meal.
The proposed council tax rise of 4.99%, which includes a 2% precept towards the cost of adult social care will amount to a yearly increase of between £63.85 and £191.55 depending on your house’s banding. Higher charges for wheelie bins, garden waste collection, parking permits and car parking are also planned in order to generate an extra £1.1m in revenue.
40 council jobs will be lost as a result of next year’s proposed cuts, including the deletion of 20 vacant posts that the authority believes will save £962,000. Further plans include shutting the City Library at 5pm rather than 7pm on Tuesdays, no longer printing the twice-yearly Citylife magazine, and reducing “non-essential” spending in areas including mobile phone contracts, and repairs and construction services.
The council said it will also review its current offer of free home to school transport for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) who are aged over 16 and expand its residential provision for children with highly complex needs, in order to reduce the money spent on “very high cost external residences” outside the city.
Council leader Nick Kemp said: “The services we provide make a real difference in the day-to-day quality of life of our residents. It is my role as leader to protect these services and to ensure that public money is invested in what is right for our residents.
“But after 14 years of sustained cuts to local government funding, there is a fundamental shift in the job we must do to balance our budget whilst meeting residents’ needs and priorities. In balancing this budget, we have taken every opportunity to review where and how our resources can be best invested.”
The council’s cabinet is due to meet next Wednesday to discuss the plans, after which a public consultation will run until January 17.