Cllr James Alexander, the Labour Leader of the City of York Council, has today announced Labour's budget plans for the council over the coming two years.
In the face of sweeping cuts to local authority funding by the Tory - Lib Dem coalition government, Labour's budget prioritises measures to protect the most vulnerable members of our community, whilst seeking to invest to boost jobs and economic growth in the future.
The Labour council has chosen to reject the Tory council tax con - which would have seen council tax rates frozen this year, only to have to rise significantly next year, or result in even greater cuts next year. As a result, we are increasing council tax by 2.9% this year (equivalent to 54p for the typical York, band C, council tax payer). The additional revenue raised will go towards increasing spending on adult social care (£1.5million) and supporting looked after children (£0.5million), with an additional small amount going towards organisations like Visit York which help to bring business to our city.
The headlines from today's announcements:
- No closures of libraries, children's centres or leisure centres
- Pushing hard to reduce the cost of bureacracy and saving over £10m through improved procurement and more efficient ways of working
- New capital expenditure to assist older and disabled people
- A £100,000 pilot project to trial payment on exit car parking in the city centre
- £1m to be spent next year on streetlight replacements
- An innovative new economic infrastructure fund, which we believe is the biggest ever investment by the City of York Council specifically to boost the local economy: providing funding for better public transport, rolling out of the city centre wi-fi scheme, and measures to attract new investment , support businesses, and ensure that people from all backgrounds are able to access the opportunities presented by the resulting economic growth
You can watch Cllr Alexander's statement in full using the video above, or download a PDF file of his remarks by clicking here.
The first three month period saw budget pressures of £4.3m as a result of the Liberal Democrat-Conservative inherited budget. Decisive action has now brought the gap down to £921k, with final savings agreed to balance the budget which will be realised in the last quarter.
Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Coun. Julie Gunnell, said:
“There have been a number of tough decisions to balance the budget by year end, which was largely set by the Lib Dems and Conservatives and which did not address the projected growth in adult social care and looked after children.
“The current budget position leaves the council in a much stronger position than at the same time last year. It is an excellent achievement and staff right across the authority are to be commended for their efforts.
“We have been very clear that the budget must be balanced at year end. Tough decisions need to be taken to balance the budget, such as clawing back unspent money from ward committees, but our key services supporting vulnerable people must always be our priority”.
