A public consultation is being launched this week to ask for residents’ views on Bradford Council’s budget proposals.
Bradford Council’s Executive considered the draft proposals when it met on Friday, 6 January.
The budget proposals for 2012-13 have been published on the Council’s website and there is an online comment form for local people, businesses and organisations to have their say. The consultation will last until Tuesday, 7 February. People who are not able to access the internet will be able to request a printed copy of the consultation from libraries and Council contact centres as from next week.
The budget will be determined at a meeting of Full Council on Thursday, 23 February when councillors will take into consideration the comments made during this public consultation, along with other consultations held previously, including the Bradford District Perception Survey, the Contribution to Care review and consultations about priorities for the district, held as part of the development of the Community Strategy.
The Council faces some tough decisions about which services it can continue to provide, and how it should provide them. Councillor Ian Greenwood, the Leader of the Council, said: "We have already felt the impact of the first year of significant reductions to Council spending and we need to make substantial savings again this year.
"As in 2011-12, difficult decisions will have to be made about the services we do less of, which services we can provide differently and which services we have to stop providing.
"We want to hear your views on how these proposed savings could affect you to ensure that we have taken everything into consideration before we make our final decisions.”
Last year we asked residents for their views on what Council services they thought were the most important; what it should cut back on; what services it should stop altogether and suggestions for how the Council could save money, reduce costs or increase income.
Residents said that education and children’s services; services for older people and refuse collection were the most important Council services. Last year we:
- Invested in building new schools for children with special needs and behavioural difficulties.
- Protected Sure Start children’s centres from closure across the district.
- Protected child protection services from cuts.
- Invested an extra £3.25 million in services for older people and people with disabilities to: make sure we can meet the growing demand for services; modernise the support we provide to people with learning disabilities and their carers; and expand respite care provision for people with disabilities.
- We reduced the number of editions of Community Pride we produce each year. In the past two years we have halved the costs of producing and distributing Community Pride.
- 80% of the savings we made last year have come from back-office functions. We have reduced the number of managers we employ, saving £9m per year and removing 331 posts from the structure. We have made further savings through ‘vacancy control’ i.e. only replacing staff who leave when absolutely necessary. We have reduced the number of people we employ by 1,000 posts. Wherever possible we have tried to avoid compulsory redundancies with senior management reductions, ending of time limited posts and all of this, total expenditure on management has reduced by £15million.
- We have significantly reduced the number of Agency staff the Council utilises
- We have renegotiated major contracts and significantly reduced the amount of money we spend on procurement (acquiring goods and services) by working with our partners and making savings by buying in bulk.
- We have significantly reduced the amount of money we spend on printed materials.
- We are negotiating with trade unions and staff on a range of terms and conditions in order to protect services and jobs.
