Southampton City Council's plan to plug £31m budget hole hits adult social care

As reported yesterday by the Daily Echo Labour’s proposals to plug a £31m black hole in the city’s finances means that 226 full-time jobs are set to go – and when added to other cuts already approved it means that almost 300 posts are set to go in 2015.

But while they were not forced to wield the axe even further due to a better-than-expected financial forecast, they have been criticised for putting money into reserves while raising council tax and shedding jobs.

Among the proposals, revealed in the Daily Echo last year, council tax for Southampton residents will go up again, by 1.99 per cent, while public toilets in Portswood and Woolston are set to close.

Last year Labour leader Cllr Simon Letts warned that 2015/16 would be the “worst year yet” for reductions in funding from central Government, meaning that vital services would be threatened.

And while they have now found the £31m needed to balance the books for 2015/16, the city’s adult social care team is set to be hit hardest, with the vast majority of the 226 jobs earmarked to go coming from the department.

As well as the closure of Woodside Lodge care home, Kentish Road respite centre and day services, already approved but included in the budget, another 113 care workers could lose their jobs.

In November Labour said they faced the task of filling a £4.3m funding gap for the 2015/16 budget.

But they have received a better than-expected handout of funding from the Government and more money from business rates, a council tax surplus and one-off pots of funding, meaning they have not had to put forward fresh cuts proposals.

Including £8.1m of “mini-budget” proposals already approved by the council last September that include cutting business support teams, it means that 295 full-time positions are likely to be scrapped from April onwards.

And the cuts pain is not set to end there – next year the council believes that it will have to find another £35m, and £19m more the following year.

Council finance chief Cllr Stephen Barnes-Andrews said that an increase of adults and children needing care had created an extra £6.2m of pressure on the council’s budget for 2015/16, adding: “Without that we would have been in a rather stronger position.”

He continued: “Sadly it’s nearly 300 full-time people going. The worrying thing is that over the next few years our balance is going down, and there will be a whole series of difficult decisions ahead.

“Next year could be very, very difficult. We’ve done our very best to protect as many services as we can but if we carry on down this path of austerity there may be some difficult days ahead.”

Conservative opposition leader Cllr Royston Smith was critical of Labour continuing to plough ahead with the council tax increase when the council had received more income than expected from other sources, including £3m which will now be put into reserves.

Cllr Barnes-Andrews said that this decision was “prudent” due to the expected pressures next year, but Cllr Smith said: “This is another missed opportunity.

“The Labour council have had three years to deal with the city’s financial challenge and they have failed to do so.

“They are behaving like an administration that knows it won’t be there after the elections in May and are leaving the difficult decisions for someone else to deal with.”

Independent Councillor Against the Cuts leader Cllr Keith Morrell said: “It matters not whether it’s Labour or Conservatives in charge, they are all determined to cut public services, and unfortunately this year they’ve decided to attack the most vulnerable in the city, that is the residents of Woodside Lodge and Kentish Road.”