Bid to spend reserves and delay job cuts
Seventy-six jobs are to go under the Conservative cabinet’s budget plans, but the Labour group has put forward amendments which aim to postpone half the redundancies by taking £600,000 from the council’s savings.
The group also wants to save the school transport budget for special needs pupils aged over 16, keep a £19,000 project which encourages school pupils to engage in the democratic process and reduce the £200,000 in Supporting People grants, which allow disabled people to get help in their own homes.
Labour group leader Councillor John Bull said: “We are proposing that half of these [76] job losses should be postponed and we would ask the director concerned to look particularly hard at posts in planning where the council has, after a long difficult period, now begun to reach the standards and targets required, all of which could be jeopardised.
“Although this would only postpone these cuts for one year at this stage it will give some breathing space in which to monitor the effects of the economic upturn on the planning environment particularly, and allow more informed choices to be made in future.”
He said they would make up some of the money for taking young people with special needs to school or college by ditching a £100,000 grant for the Theatre Royal and £50,000 on building more links with China, with the remainder taken from reserves.
Malcolm Hanney, cabinet member for resources, said it made no sense to put off difficult decisions.
He said: “We need to live within the means of our residents tomorrow as well as today.
“We are making some difficult decisions now, including regrettably some job losses, to ensure we can achieve our longer-term objectives.
“Prudent management of the council’s finances has ensured we have the ability to re-prioritise resources to key areas, support and invest in the area for the future, and deliver the lowest council tax increase since Bath and North East Somerset was formed – 2.5 per cent.”
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