Massive Council Cuts Consultation Begins

The Council’s Executive Board met this afternoon in the Guildhall to approve the latest 2014/15 budget proposals before it goes to consultation tomorrow.

The meeting was well attended, with well over thirty-five councillors present, plus the Council’s Chief Executive and Officers (we roughly calculate the total compensation in excess of £600,000) for the discussion over £10,000,000 of possible cuts.

There appeared to be initial confusion over the purpose of the meeting, with some protesting against cuts and some members asking questions regarding specific cuts despite none actually taking place yet. The meeting itself was to agree on the proposed budget, which includes the cuts, before it is put out to public consultation which goes live formally to the public tomorrow morning.

The timeline of decision-making is based around the mid-January Executive Board meeting and the February Full Council meeting, both of which will ‘consider the consultation responses’.

Cllr Malcolm King introduced the report to the meeting saying: “The report highlights £10,000,000 of savings, plus information to make future savings in following years. We have little option other than reshape and scale back.”

The report itself had a handful of errors, including one that made reference to possible closure of a public toilet in Powys, which provided the only light-hearted moment of the afternoon with a comment of “We don’t wish to start a cross border incident”.

One change of note was the report line that stated three libraries could close, which is now changed to ‘up to three’ libraries could close.

A small silent protest took place during the meeting with banners held up in the public gallery (pictured above) saying “Keep Rhos Open” referring to its library.

Chairman Cllr Neil Rogers told them: “There is no debate today on the libraries, but you are invited to the scrutiny committee tomorrow at 2pm”.

Councillors were asked to support the ‘savings’ encompassed in the report, which then kicked off the debate.

Cllr Bill Baldwin said: “What are the cuts to third sector, and can they assure us they are being made fairly and evenly.”

The meeting was told by Cllr Griffiths: “No cuts have been decided, but we are going though the contracts we have, and are they challengeable

“This will come to scrutiny as soon as possible. Challenge meetings have been arranged for this month and next.

“Nothing will be done without you knowing about it.”

Cllr John Pritchard said: “My concerns are the subsided bus and taxi services. The residents rely on these services for example to visit the doctors surgeries.”

He went on explain that children use these services for their independence at weekends, as they are often included in the fees paid for school transport. Queries on the statistics were raised, with Old Age Pensioner figures ‘not registered by the ticket machine, and similar with children’.

Cllr Dutton replied: “This will be out for consultation. The Officers involved are very concerned about the impact, but we need to make a principled decision today to take these matters forward”. There was no reply to the query over the legitimacy of the data as was queried.

Cllr Pritchard then asked the same question again on the figures, prompting a reply from Cllr Dutton: “I answered the question as best as I could. If we get to a position where we don’t know the figures we will have to take a decision as we are faced.”

A query was made about the method of asking the public regarding consultations, if it would be online and or offline.

The meeting was told it would be via ‘our own website, particular groups and using the contact centre, and pretty much every route we have got to communicate’. It was clarified there would not be a general mail out to every household.

One issue raised with the report that was echoed by many Councillors was over the lack of specifics and detail in areas of the consultation.

Cllr Morris suggested wording of some elements of the report were not clear, for example ‘non payment of inflation to all non-residential service providers’, with the inference being that Councillors may not be understanding the meaning of a single line description.

Cllr King responded: “If members don’t feel they have enough information then please ask the relevant officers. I agree some of the items are not as informative as they should be.”

Cllr David Kelly was critical of alternative delivery methods not being mentioned much, with more of a focus on total removal of services. He also highlighted how some departments referred to ‘reviews’ rather than specifics, such as in the Environmental section. “I want assurance that all the elements will come back in specific forms rather than overarching comments’.

Cllr Kelly also said ‘we are not being upfront and transparent’, explaining how some savings are large percentages and effective cessation rather than some that mention direct cessation of services.

Cllr O’Toole was split over the report, praising elements but also being critical of the lack of depth of descriptors saying ‘More information could be provided without overloading the consultation document’.

Cllr Lowe followed the criticism saying it ‘challenges if this is an open and transparent consultation’ as libraries, grass cuttings and school catering had no specifics in terms of where and who would be affected. ‘To me this document is not open and transparent and not meaningful as it does not tell the general public enough’

The scathing analysis of the consultation was summed up by Cllr Lowe as ‘There is not a lot of benefit to it going out’.

Cllr King disagreed, saying: “It is trying to find a balance between giving too much information and too little. If we gave the level you are suggesting you would have a document that was filled with lots of numbers that a lot of numbers that a lot of people don’t respond too well to, but as well it would be a much longer document. If we want to communicate with a number of people it needs to be a format that engages people.

“In terms of being transparent this is a public document and anyone can ask about information behind it. This is a genuine attempt to engage people.”

Cllr Mark Pritchard took exception to the comments, saying that comments from Cllr Lowe had implied that Officers were not doing their job correctly. “I wish all members would stop saying this as a throwaway remark as it is untrue.”

The full consultation is being launched in the morning, however until then you can read the preliminary consultation towards the bottom of this PDF, or:

Sending a completed feedback form to: Tell us what you think, 3rd Floor Annexe, The Guildhall, Wrexham, LL11 1AY.
Sending an email to: [email protected] (please mark your email ‘budget consultation’)
Writing to us at: Tell us what you think, 3rd Floor Annexe, The Guildhall, Wrexham, LL11 1AY (please mark your letter ‘budget consultation’)

The closing date for responses to this consultation is 11th December 2013.

Our tweets from the meeting today…

At the Guildhall for todays Executive Board meeting – item 1 is ‘Revenue Budget 2014/15’ aka The Probable Cuts…

— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) November 12, 2013

Silent protests in the public gallery against service cuts – banners held up. Wonder if forthcoming Council TV will cover public gallery?

— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) November 12, 2013

40 minutes into the meeting & have heard rebudgeting, cuts,cutbacks,streamlining,axe,reshape,squeezing etc. Now a first – ‘increasing’ !

— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) November 12, 2013

@arfonj Chair of meeting just gave quick question running order, yours in there but ‘cant have been important as hes no longer here’ !

— Wrexham.com (@wrexham) November 12, 2013