Issue - meetings

Sean Fox addressed the Cabinet in his role as chair of the employee side and set out the Unions concerns about the scale and nature of the budget reductions and the affect they would have on the communities in the borough.  In particular, the Unions raised on behalf of their members, concerns about:

·         Black and ethnic minority communities, women, and the lower paid. The EQIA was indicating a disproportionate impact of the savings on these groups and in turn the unions felt there would also be an impact on vulnerable service users.

·         Staff - 633 positions would be affected over three years by the proposed savings .The workforce plan was indicating likely future changes to the voluntary redundancy policy and the intention of this caveat was questionable. An unacceptable voluntary reduction policy would test industrial relations.

·         Savings proposed to the Adult Services and Children’s Services which indicated a stop in direct services with a deliberate reliance on the private sector to provide services which the council, in this area had not been successful with, in the past.

·         Apparent scaling back of children centres which would affect vulnerable families.

·         Reduction in Youth Services which the Unions felt had already been significantly reduced in the past and would have an impact on community tensions.

·          The future of Pendarren House  which was a long running school and youth resort

·         Frontline services and vulnerable services users.

The Employee side recommended stopping the use of consultants and finding more internal solutions by instead working with existing staff and also bringing the ALMO back in house.

In accordance with committee procedure rules, the Leader asked Cabinet Members to put forward questions to the deputation.

The Cabinet Member for Housing and Regeneration reminded the Employee’s side that the council did not have any control over making the required £70m budget reduction which was due to Central Government reduction in funding.  Children’s and Adults services were the biggest spending areas of the council’s budget and would inevitably  be part of budget reduction proposals He asked what alternatives/suggestions  the Employee side  could put forward  to making the required reductions. In response the employee side that they were putting forward the concerns of their members and the community and had already highlighted their alternative actions at the end of their presentation.

The Leader further responded to the points raised in the deputation. There were large parts of the budget proposals which the Cabinet had no pleasure in putting forward but there had already been £117m of budget reductions over the last 4 years and there were no palatable reductions left. There was also a need to keep available in the council’s financial resources some flexibility for the council transform and make the necessary service changes so that the council does not manage decline . The Leader reiterated that the council could not set a deficit budget as some other public agencies and neither could they go forward with a yearly budget exercise. Bringing together the corporate plan, workforce plan and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 776