Budget summary for the Olney ward parishes.
The budget this year has to make significant savings of around £22m. These are made up of over 140 savings proposals ranging from £10k to over £1m in a single line. Some of these are cuts to services, some are efficiencies from running things better and some is from the raising of council tax.
It is proposed to raise council tax by 4.95% this year. 1.95% is for use on general services, the other 3% is for investment into adult social care. The budget papers as published only show how 2% of the rise for adult social care will be used. The remaining 1% will become clear at the cabinet meeting in February but the 1% rise is worth around £1m.
This report will not list every saving as these can be found in the budget papers but will highlight the lines which I feel will affect the most people in the Olney ward. It may be that others will have an impact and feel free to mention these in any response.
Some of these highlighted I feel should be supported and demonstrate how to save money in hard times. Some of the cuts are short sighted.
S2 – S12 is based upon saving from sharing services through the new LGSS (local Government shared services) model which Milton Keynes has entered into with Northants and se collectively are worth nearly £800k with no recorded impact on services.
S23 closes a traded service, connect Mk which provides computers to local people. It will save £80k but is having less and less demand as computers become more affordable and mobile computing expands.
S30 – S49 are savings in adult social care. These are large figures some of which will have impacts on certain groups of people but it is unlikely they will have impact on whole sectors of the community in the Olney ward. There are no savings such as the closure of the Kitchener centre that were proposed last year.
S50 – S65 are savings in children’s services. The savings on the whole are focused on cross cutting services. A significant amount of work is being put into making efficiencies in home to school transport, the cost of which has grown massively in the past few years. Much of the increase is coming from homeless families housed outside on Milton Keynes where children have to be transported back to Milton Keynes for school and transport to special schools.
S85 sees a cut of £64k in support for health and well being activities in sports centres. This is a cut of 75% in the budget and will see significant reductions in planned services. This also sees the complete reduction of support for sport MK which support sports clubs and talented sporting individuals.
S 105 £50k sees a reduction in the funding for planning enforcement. This will see planning enforcement focused around the most serious breaches. This will mean that some less serious breaches that have previously been enforced will not be in the future. This cuts have impacts across the ward area.
S109 saves £248k 10% of the budget through converting grid road lights industrial estates and redway lights to LED’s. This will have no impact and should be supported.
S110 sees a reduction of £6k in the support to remaining £6k will be removed next year. This is a small amount however this will either be picked up by a reduction in service by them or an increase in precepts that parishes pay.
S114 is a saving of £97 on housing estate lighting by converting to LED’s. Olney will be converted in the first year. The light is whiter than traditional lights and concerns have been raised as to the impacts this would have however I have been assured this has ben implemented in other parts of the country without any problems.
S116 and S146 reduces the amount of money paid to buss operators for both cross boundary routes and internal concessionary fare routes. The saving is £381k. It is unknown if this will have any impact on routes but routes could become unviable for operators and be cut as a result.
S119 saving of £120k this reduces by 1/3rd the payments to parishes that do their own landscaping. In the Olney ward this is Ravenstone, Weston Underwood and Olney. The argument is that MKC could do it for cheaper however this is disputed.the argument has also been put that this removes incentives for parishes to take on devolved services when at the first opportunity MKC cuts funding. Why would parishes take on other services? This may change in the final budget proposals.
S147b stop refilling grit bins. This will mean the yellow bins are not refilled or maintained and parishes will have to pick up this cost. This has not been costed how much is actually spent on this so it is unsure however paths and roads will be more vulnerable if this is not done.
S147c stop spaying weeds on paths and roadways. £50k saving. This will see the villages look far more untidy but will after questioning apparently not lead to a degradation of the road surface. If parishes want this doing they will have to pay for it themselves.
S147d £220k. This will see street cleansing budgets reduced which will see all areas cleaned less frequently than they were before. In effect every area will slip by one level. Therefore if it was doe every month this will now be every 2 months etc.
S147e £59k this removes one rapid street cleansing crew so graffiti and fly tipping will take longer to clear up.
S147k will see strimming around obstacles such as lampposts and signs stopped so this will make the are look more untidy. This is not the case in the villages which do their own landscaping. This saves £15k.
S123 £10k. This sees the removal of the out of hours emergency plan response team. The replacement to ensure that an emergency is covered has not yet been worked out but the apparels say that this will not be covered. This means flooding serious fires traffic accidents out of office hours will not have the council’s support to emergency and statutory services. This could potentially be catastrophic.
S124 stops the out of hours noise service. This covers loud noises disturbing people out of hours including parties, dogs barking etc. This service had 600 call outs in the last year. Saves £40k.
S133 reduces the amount of routes gritted on marginal nights. This could be achieved there is also dangers that villages will not be done on some nights leaving them vulnerable.
S137 disbands the research team MKi observatory. This analyses data that is available to parishes which helps support neighbourhood plans growth schools etc. This saves £77k but could cost hugely more in many area if any group is trying to plan forward. Parishes use this information as do schools health and numerous other groups.
S138 and S139 £1.4m this is achieved through debt re-financing.
S115 £10k apply a fee of £5 for junior concessions cards for bus travel. This will cost young people more however those entitled to free school meals will not have to pay. This will however cost young people more.
S126 £179k charging for residents parking permits. This puts in place a charge for residents parking permits which previously has not been in place. This does not affect many places in the Olney ward but would affect new schemes if they came into force.
S127 £993k increase in parking charges for employees with parking permits. This will affect people differently expending upon the type of vehicle and is made up of a number of savings. This includes an increase from £75 to £315 for low carbon vehicles. Multiple occupancy vehicles will also change from £75 per vehicle to £130 per person.
Peter Geary 24/1/2017