Budget Archives - Page 6 of 6

No To Music Tuition Cuts

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Community, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Nov 222010

By Margaret Preston.

Many Aberdeen musicians and their colleagues from all over UK are dismayed at the proposed cuts in the instrumental practice in Aberdeen.

While those at home are aware of the many vital services that have been slashed in order to cut the Council Deficit, those outwith Aberdeen are frequently unaware of the context and are wondering how the ‘Oil Capital of Europe’ cannot ensure an enriching and nurturing educational environment for all its children.

The supply of subsidised music tuition is not a statutory requirement in schools and therefore is probably considered a soft target by our cash strapped council.

In defence of the council, they have traditionally provided an instrumental service in schools that was the envy of many, lauded at home and abroad as setting a benchmark for other councils to aspire to.

Over many years the Aberdeen/shire music peripatetic staff have :

provided value for money – most of their time is spent “one on one” or in small groups providing quality time with demonstrable results that are not often seen in many of the other “one on one” situations in schools.
provided top quality musicians – The performing arts in Aberdeen have been well served by the “products” of our instrumental service. Our local theatre/musical societies are top notch and have, over the years, managed to perform at a professional standard. Moreover, Aberdeen’s various orchestras and bands have provided music for many civic and corporate occasions. Can we imagine our Remembrance Sunday without the Bon Accord Band or indeed the recent hit show The Producers (and many others like this) without its pit orchestra?
Star performers from Aberdeen/shire have graced stages all over the world. Annie Lennox, Evelyn Glennie, Lisa Milne (and too many top orchestral players to mention) were products of school instrumental service. Aside from these celebrities there are those who have, because of the discipline, dexterity, intellectual development, spirit, etc required in mastering an instrument, have further honed their abilities and consequently gone on to take top jobs in medicine, engineering, and many other fields.

Of course there are further benefits from this kind of specialised service. For many children in deprived areas this has been the only nurturing “one on one” experience that they were assured of on a weekly basis.

Star performers from Aberdeen/shire have graced stages all over the world

A pupil should not be judged soley by their musical progress, but also by the wider benefits that are evident in their general development and interaction with their peers.

There has been considerable investment in music over the years in Aberdeen, and it shows! Aberdeen is recognised nationally for the excellence of it’s contribution to the music world. If this was removed we could see more than a lack of a musical milieu in Aberdeen.

Music reflects and promotes the health of individuals and society as a whole. Cutting now, with a possible reintroduction at a later date when resources allowed, might work on paper, but in reality, the resulting degradation of that society would make the reintroduction almost impossible as the health of the society would have been irrevocably undermined.

These are difficult times caused by a variety of circumstances countrywide, and within the council. The concern that councillors may act for the “the moment” and not be around or answerable to appreciate the consequences of some of the cuts are understandable. The sacrifice of some of our creative nurturing traditions could leave our society fighting the “rearguard” action that we often see in deprived/urban areas, where increasing amounts of money are being spent to battle drugs, alcohol, obesity and general laxity.

Children should have a chance for a productive and happy future. This is to some extent determined by the quality and breadth of their all round education. Instead of enacting cuts that could have us mopping up the ‘fallout’ for many years to come, our councillors should reconsider their recent proposals to cut a service which has for many years been a beacon in the world of musical education.

Students Fiddled Out Of Music Tuition?

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Nov 192010

By Fred Wilkinson with thanks to Stuart Reid.

Thousands in Aberdeen are shocked and distraught by the news last week of Aberdeen City council’s proposal to cease funding schools based music tuition via closure or privatisation of its Music Service.

The service consists of 50 music instructors who teach all orchestral instruments and singing, guitar, piano/keyboard and bagpipes in schools in Aberdeen.

If approved on Dec 3, the proposal would effectively bring to an end the entitlement to free tuition and access to a wide range of instruments for students of parents in receipt of Income Support or Child Tax Credits.

The news has sparked outrage amongst students, former students and teachers in the Aberdeen area and, in addition to a 6000 strong Facebook Campaign [1] and a 1859 strong petition [2], it is expected that more than a thousand people will attend a demonstration against the proposal on November 30th. [3]

The proposal to withdraw music tuition is one of twenty-two proposed cuts to education, culture and sports services on page 21 of Aberdeen city council’s Priority Based Budgeting Final Draft Report. [4]

A final year education student told Aberdeen Voice of her concerns:

“I feel very strongly about this issue as I am currently about to become a primary school teacher and I have already witnessed first hand how music improves attainment in all subjects, fosters team spirit and sustained hard work.”

As well as the loss of a valued educational facility, it is feared that jobs in music education may be axed, and it is unlikely that the pool of instruments currently in circulation will be maintained. The opportunity to simply enjoy music in a supportive environment is perhaps unseen, and unquantifiable – and therefore may be an easy target when requiring to make savings

1% of the education budget ensures that 14% percent of school pupils receive music tuition

There is a danger that the term “you don’t miss what you’ve never had” may be a strong card in how this proposal plays out. If so, then it is a good time for musicians and music students to shout loud about the value of music tuition and its part in determining their life choices.

Former pupil of Aberdeen Music Services Stuart Reid is all too aware of the value of the service he has enjoyed:

“My experiences there have profoundly influenced what I now do. It was the exceptional tuition and wide range of youth groups run by the service that first let me experience the joy of music making. I am presently a final year music student at Birmingham Conservatoire; if it had not been for the music service then I would not be doing what I am now.

“Aberdeen City Council has good reason to take pride in its music services. Most importantly it can take pride in the men and women it employs in this department, whose wealth of knowledge and devotion to their profession help maintain the services consistently high standards. This is entirely the wrong area to assess in cost saving measures.

Indeed, accounting for just 1% of the education budget, the music service surely represents excellent value for money. On the ‘Help Aberdeen Music Service’ page on Facebook, Cllr Martin Greig comments:

“14% of the school population benefits from this service. Music education is a tradition of which we can be justifiably proud”

Let us look at those figures again. 1% of the education budget ensures that 14% percent of school pupils receive music tuition (the percentage who benefit will be somewhat higher). Is it just me, or does this read like a case for increasing that element of funding?

Opposition to the proposed cuts might gain encouragement from the fact that a similar proposal by Fife council to cut £434,000 from the schools music service budget has been deferred following a sustained campaign against the move. [5]

However, Mr. Reid has been overwhelmed by the response to the Facebook page he created to gather support in opposition to the proposal [1]. At the time of writing, only five days after the page launch and the posting of 60 invites, the link been distributed to over 6000 groups and individuals urging all concerned to write to members of the Finance and Resources committee before 3^rd December.

In his own letter to committee members, Mr Reid states:

“The far reaching benefits of music education are sadly rarely recognised. In brief, pupils have been shown to benefit both educationally and socially from music instruction.

“All pupils, regardless of personal ability stand to benefit from music education, but Aberdeen Music Service gives a quality of education that grants another tier of benefit. An astonishing number of pupils involved with music groups at the city’s music centre go on to perform at national level in organisations such as the National Youth Choir of Scotland and the National Youth Children’s Orchestra, Jazz Orchestra and Orchestra of Scotland. Many others go on to study at prestigious universities and music colleges up and down Britain, contributing to Britain’s wealth of arts and culture.”

Mr Reid’s words resonate strongly. As a professional musician, I owe much to the guitar tuition I received in secondary school. As one of many casualties of severe cuts to Social Care services, I consider myself more fortunate than most in that I am able to make a living from playing a musical instrument.

Many of my fellow professionals in the field of music will cite schools based musical instrument tuition as the foundation for their present level of expertise. As well as the means to earn money, we have enjoyed many opportunities to travel – sometimes to unusual and exciting places and events, making precious acquaintances in the process of presenting our own local/national culture worldwide.

It is extremely sad that this valuable, yet undervalued service has come under threat, and a generation could be denied the fantastic opportunities and experiences myself and my colleagues have enjoyed by way of our education in music.

Sources

[1] http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=684606295#!/event.php?eid=160768090626312

[2] http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gopetition.com%2Fpetition%2F40692.html&h=a03db

[3] !/event.php?eid=140848399298674

[4] http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/web/files/next_five_years/nfy_pbb_final_report_oct2010.pdf

[5]http://www.thecourier.co.uk/News/Fife/article/7487/cuts-threat-removed-from-music-in-schools-for-now.html

Horrific Scale Of Council Cuts Becomes Clearer

Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Nov 192010

By Cllr Martin Ford, Aberdeenshire Council.

Following the announcement on Wednesday (17th November) by Finance Secretary John Swinney of the Scottish Government’s budget proposals, the scale of the cuts required at Aberdeenshire Council has become slightly clearer.

If the Council agrees to freeze the Council Tax and other measures, it will have its government funding cut by around £10 million. If it does not agree to freeze the Council Tax, it will lose around £30 million from its government funding support.

Effectively, Mr Swinney has re-introduced Council Tax capping, with the cap set at no increase at all. Preventing some of the threatened cuts in services by a measured rise in the Council Tax has to all intents and purposes been ruled out – although there is a strong case for taking that option. As it is, that choice has been denied to communities and their elected representatives by a Scottish Government that is showing no respect for local democratic decision-making and is forcing councils to make cuts that could have been avoided.

Freezing the Council Tax is clearly financially unsustainable and, given inflation and rising costs, is effectively a tax cut. A Council Tax freeze as a temporary measure when budgets were rising was one thing. Forcing councils to, in effect, cut local tax when their grant funding is also being reduced is quite another.

Far from reducing the impact of budget cuts arising from decisions at Westminster the Scottish Government is adding cuts of its own.

Mr Swinney’s statement has left a lot of uncertainty surrounding the funding for local government next year. It has provided no basis for forward planning for future years.

Freezing the Council Tax is clearly financially unsustainable and, given inflation and rising costs, is effectively a tax cut

As best it is possible to judge at this stage, taking into account higher costs and other pressures, Aberdeenshire Council is probably going to have to cut around £30 million from its budget for 2011/12.

Some of the savings required can certainly be achieved by finding efficiencies. But with such a huge funding shortfall, cuts in services are, sadly, inevitable.

On Thursday next week (25th November), the Council will start the process of deciding what services to cut. Council finance officers are advising that the Council will need to make savings of almost £17 million by cutting services, with the balance of savings being achieved by efficiencies and increases in charges.

The reduction in the Council’s budget is expected to result in a loss of around 900 full-time equivalent posts. This is almost 10 per cent of the Council’s workforce.

This is not the first time Aberdeenshire Council has had to make cuts in services. But this is far worse than anything I have experienced since I was first elected in 1999. The budget cut required is significantly more. And this time the option of reducing the cuts by increasing income from the Council Tax has been denied to the Council by the Scottish Government. The Council really has very little room for manoeuvre. It gets to decide what to cut, but the scale of the overall cut has been decided for it.

Painful Budget Cuts Unavoidable

Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Featured, Information No Responses »

Nov 152010

By Cllr Martin Ford, Aberdeenshire Council

Next February, councils will set their revenue budgets for the financial year 2011/12. It looks certain that the funding councils receive from government will be reduced, leaving councils with no choice but to make painful cuts to a wide range of public services.

Aberdeenshire Council will be no different from other councils in the difficult decisions it will have to take.

The Council’s revenue budget – the budget that pays for the running costs of Council services – is currently £550 million. Around 20 per cent of that comes from the Council Tax, the Council offsets the cost of some services by charging users, but the vast bulk of the Council’s funding comes, in one form or another, from the Scottish Government. Even before the Council Tax freeze, the Council only had control over a small proportion of its income. Now, effectively, the amount the Council has to spend on services is fixed by the grant funding it receives from government. If the Council is given less, it will have to cut its spending accordingly.

One problem for the Council is that, only three months before setting its budget, it still does not know what size of spending cut it will have to make.

Aberdeenshire may have to make savings of anything from £25 to £40 million next year. It could even be more, or less, than that range. Until the Scottish Government makes its decisions, the Council is having to plan for a variety of scenarios.

The position will become clearer when the Scottish Government’s draft budget for 2011/12 is published on Wednesday. The Council will probably have to wait until close to Christmas before it finds out exactly what level of funding it will receive from the Scottish Government next year.

I have been a councillor for eleven years. Setting the Council’s revenue budget is always challenging. There is never enough money to fund all the services the Council would ideally provide. The cost of providing services goes up every year due to price increases (especially, in recent years, for electricity and heating), staff salaries and, in some key areas, more people needing the service. For most of the last ten years, though, the Council has received additional funding from government, but not usually enough to fully cover the increased cost of keeping services running as before.

For the first time in my experience, the Council’s overall budget is set to shrink

Arriving at a balanced budget for the following year required some spending to be cut and savings made even though there was to be a rise in the Council’s total spending.

This year will be different. For the first time in my experience, the Council’s overall budget is set to shrink. Savings (or cuts) will have to be found to offset all the rises in costs since last year, and the Council will have to cut spending to match the reduction in income from government grant. Since the Council has been seeking savings every year already, there are no (or very few) easy options for achieving this.

Personally, I will want to support measures that as far as possible protect education and social services, reduce the Council’s carbon emissions and which accord with sound financial management.

There are a few savings that I think the Council should not find it too difficult to agree. One example is funding for unadopted roads.

The Council will struggle to adequately fund the maintenance of public roads, a clear council responsibility. It can’t afford to contribute towards the cost of maintaning or improving roads it is not responsible for that provide access across private land.

Ending funding contributions to unadopted roads would save the Council £300,000 – a worthwhile saving but only a small fraction of the savings the Council needs to make.

Raising additional tax revenue from those who can afford to pay would be a good start

I hope the Council will use the budget process to acknowledge that it cannot afford what it would have to pay if the Western Peripheral Route was built.

Unfortunately, however, it is difficult to see how the Council will be able to balance its budget without making cuts in education and social work. These are the services which account for the bulk of the Council’s spending. The education budget alone accounts for nearly half of what the Council spends each year.

Cutting education or social work is the last thing I want to do – but the Council cannot spend money it does not have.

It is also true that the UK budget deficit cannot be ignored – reducing it is essential – but there are alternatives to the draconian cuts in public services and welfare the Liberal Democrat/Conservative coalition government has chosen. Raising additional tax revenue from those who can afford to pay would be a good start. The Scottish Government too could use its powers over taxation to reduce the scale of the cuts if it wanted to.

Given the scale of the likely cuts, I believe asking some people to contribute a bit more towards the cost of public services would have been a far better and fairer option.

The Forty Poun’ Froonyal

Articles, Creative Writing, Featured, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Nov 122010

By George Anderson.

In these post credit crunch-times, with predicted belt-tightening likely to bring tears to a glass eye, I wonder whether there might be resurgence of the cheap funerals (known in the patois of the north-east of Scotland as ‘froonyals’) of my youth. A good illustration would be the froonyal of my uncle Chunty in 1968:

Chunty’s family huddle together in the front pew. This is due more to a failure of the chapel radiators than anything related to a group hug. The pews behind the immediate family creak under the combined weight of people to whom Chunty is related through drink. The organist battles his way through a double time version of ‘Abide With Me’.

This has been written specially for low cost funerals by the Reverend Melrose Nochty himself.

Melrose strides in to the chapel and ascends to the pulpit two steps at a time. At the summit, he signals the organist, Mr Leiper, to pack it in—sharpish like, by throwing a hymn book at his head. Melrose starts talking before the final strangled blasts of air struggle out of the organ pipes.

‘Up ye get,’ he says, and lifts his palms toward the rafters. The congregation scramble to their feet. ‘Dearly beloved, et cetera, et cetera, and et cetera … Matthew, Mark, Luke and John … pearls before swine … Sit doon.’

He fishes an alarm clock out of the dark recesses of his ministerial garments, winds it up, and slams it down on the edge of the pulpit. The congregation sit down.

Melrose is talking faster than an auctioneer at a cattle station in Woolawonga. “Stand up! The Lord may well be my Shepherd, but let’s face it”, he waves a hand toward a plywood casket , “judging by Chunty’s pitiful record of church attendance, it’ll be easier for the Turra Coo to pass through the centre o’ a doughring than for Chunty tae enter the Kindom o’ Heaven.

A thundercloud of Old Testament wrath passes across the Reverend Nochty’s scowling face

Now, sit doon, sit doon for God’s sake. I haven’t got all day.”

From his lofty perch Melrose looks down at the organist’s toupee.

‘Mr Leiper will now play an ex-tremely short extract from the twenty-third Psalm.’ Mr Leiper’s fingers scurry over the keys like mice fleeing a burning barn. Eight bars in, Melrose again signals Mr Leiper to cease and desist, this time by repeatedly banging a hymn book on the edge of the pulpit and shouting ‘All right, that’ll do, this isn’t an organ recital, Mr Leiper.’

Melrose clasps his hands before him and closes his eyes. “Jonah in the belly of the whale…Sermon on the mount… Feeding o the twa thoosan”—’ a voice from the back of the chapel, interrupts.

“Is it nae five thoosan’, minister? The feedin o the five thoosan’?”

A thundercloud of Old Testament wrath passes across the Reverend Nochty’s scowling face. He speaks. “Listen pal, you shouldnae’ even be here. Now sit doon.”

“I am sittin doon!”’

“Well, stand up and then sit doon.”

He pauses, grips the edges of the lectern and looks at the congregation with a measure of contempt normally reserved for the criminally insane. His voice drops an octave. “There’ll be weepin”,’ he says “and there’ll be a fair skelp o wailin’ intae the bargain.” He stabs a finger in the vague direction of the front pews. “An’ by Christ, teeth’ll be gnashed ‘n’ aa! Stand up, sit doon, and pey attention”.

Now it is the widow’s turn to interrupt. “Will ye be much langer?’ she asks. ‘Only, there’s a steen’ cold cert rinnin’ in the three thirty at Perth and the nearest bookie’s fower miles awa.”

Melrose gives her the vees and gathers from the alarm clock that it is time to wind up the service. “Get up and start prayin, real fast”, he says. He lowers his head fast enough to get whiplash. “Oh Lord, please tak’ Chunty tae yer bosom. In yer own hivvenly time, of course, but seener rather than later, if ye dinna mind. I’ve anither three o these to get through afore lowsin’ time.”

He raises his arms and clears his throat. “Ashes tae ashes, stew tae stew, Chunty’s awa, and so are you”, Melrose’s alarm clock goes off, forcing him to raise his voice. ‘Sit doon, stand up, and shove right off.” The congregation do not have to be told twice; there is a stampede through the chapel doors reminiscent of the opening thirty seconds of a Next sale.

Old Susannah’s Dictionary No.12 – Budget Special.

Articles, Creative Writing, Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Nov 122010

Voice’s Old Susannah tackles more tricky terms with a locally topical taste.

Surfboard, Boogieboard, Waterboard.
All just harmless fun really. No less a person than the former US President, George ‘Dubya’ Bush has explained in his new book that without waterboarding (which really isn’t so bad apparently – it can’t kill you – usually), lives would have been lost*. Sometimes little things like the Geneva Convention, the Bill of Rights, the EU Convention, etc. have to be put to one side. A little torture can be a good thing; and after all, there is a long history supporting its use.

If we hadn’t tortured people in the past, how would we have know for certain that witches flew on broomsticks to meet Satan at black masses, ruined crops and turned people into newts? After just a little torture, thousands confessed to the truth of devil worship. Of course whether or not torture is OK all depends on who is doing the torture: Western torturers good; Eastern ones bad. Glad to have cleared that up. Two mysteries remain: How come no one cracked under (judicious and necessary) torture and said where all those Weapons of Mass Destruction were hidden? Secondly, I’d love to find out how Dubya, who from most accounts can barely read, managed to write a book. This is the man who complained in a speech that more and more of America’s imports were coming from abroad.

*I wonder how else lives could have been saved in this situation. Give the UK troops equipment that worked and matched the conditions? Not go to war in the first place? No, can’t think of a thing but torture.

Brief maths quiz:
If you start with a deficit of 52 million pounds, then fail to collect over £15 million owed to you, then start a project for £80 million pounds and contemplate a £140 million pound car park, don’t pay staff correctly by £X million, and announce you want to go into the concert business by buying an exhibition centre which you’ve already spent a minimun of £36 million on, while cutting millions formerly used to support vulnerable, schools and parks then what is the result? The answer, according to a recent Aberdeen City Council is a £9 million pound surplus. That is according to outgoing Sue Bruce in a recent ACC press release.

Press Release.
A press release is a piece of writing sent to newspapers and television, used to call attention to what a wonderful job you are doing. Press Releases are sent in the hope that the media will run your story. Of course accuracy in Press releases is managed by seasoned professionals who take great care to get the facts correct.

The Aberdeen City Council writes press releases religiously – and quite rightly so, with the calibre of their accomplishments. Sadly, the Press and Journal printed (per standard practice) one of the City’s releases which concerned the amount of unpaid council tax. There was a City press release which claimed around £43 million was unclaimed and that one in three households had to be taken to court over unpaid council tax.

The P&J printed these figures, relying on the accuracy of the press release. Naturally, this was a mistake. The higher-ups in the Council read the figures in the news, went ballistic, and went into action. Instead of issuing a new press release stating their mistake, they decided to publicly blame the P&J for getting its sums wrong. This resulted in an editorial by the P&J accusing the Council of being less than generous with the truth. It ended with words along the lines of “… we (the P&J) will accept the blame for our mistakes – Brazen attempts to shift the blame (by the City) we can’t.” Thankfully, it is only about £30 million that the City is owed in Council tax. Easy to misplace the odd £14 million or so; Old Susannah does it all the time. But then again, expect this figure to change in a day or two.

Budget Cuts.
Even though we are rich, everyone needs budget cuts. A budget cut is what you to to preserve what is essential, or in Council-speak, what is a ‘core service’. Core services include running concerts at a loss, making Olympic swimmers, and taking trips.

We all have to budget – how many tens of thousands of pounds do you spend on outfits to wear to important events per year, how much to spend on travel, how much to spend on propping up white elephants (like the AECC). In order to meet our budgets, hard choices must be made. Do you cut grandma’s care support? Junior’s school? Close the backyard swimming pool? Stop giving to the poor? Stop feeding the birds? Of course you do. And our Council budgets wisely as well.

You will be very happy to hear that Sue Bruce announced a £9 million surplus. No doubt this money will be earmarked for the vitally- important Olympic pool: what could be more important than Aberdeen winning an Olympic medal for swimming ? – which seems an absolute certainty. Millions will be saved by closing all the regional swimming pools (particularly the ones which have recently beeen refurbished). One giant Olympic pool is all you and the family need. You’ll also get your exercise just by getting to it – now that the bus fares have risen above inflation rates.

But don’t expect to exercise in the parks any longer – they are getting the axe – possibly literally. All that money spent in the past on blue skies, green grass, clean air, biodiversity, play areas has been done away with. If the parks can’t make money as they are, the sooner they are turned into something profitable the better.

We will not, however face the loss of a single pounds worth of our real estate portfolio, which we cherish and which is the envy of the civilised world. All those boarded up buildings are safe. Rest easy.

Thankfully there is money towards a regional ‘super prison’ – presumably for those who can’t – or won’t pay their council tax. The level of tax has been frozen for a few years – so have many people’s salaries. However, our services such as police, libraries, teachers, services for people with special needs and the elderly have halved. I wonder if we should all apply for a refund, as we’re not getting one half of what we paid for to start with. Just a thought.

At least at the end of it, we have preserved Marischal College. Since its entire interior has been scrapped (including books seen thrown into skips), our brand of ‘preservation’ is akin to the preservation of the taxidermist.

Next week:

No mention of the 9-0 Celtic/Aberdeen Result – that would be unkind. Some people believe the management (S Milne, proprietor) is not investing in the club sufficiently. However, once we have a football/community stadium twice the size of the present AFC home, the crowds will fill it up completely, and the club’s morale will be so boosted it wins lots of silverware.

Closures, Cleansing, Cars, Costs and Cuts

Articles, Community, Featured, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Nov 122010

Members of Friends of UTG were shocked this week when they attended what they thought was a fairly low-profile council meeting to discuss ‘land use’ in the city.

Mike Shepherd told the Voice;

‘A friendly councillor told us about the Land Use forum being held in Aberdeen town house on Tuesday night. We went along with the vague idea that there might be some discussions relevant to the Union Terrace Gardens campaign. To our surprise it was a meeting to discuss council cuts over the next five years.

Present were various members of the council executive representing enterprise, planning and infrastructure (but not social services).

Options for budget cuts have already been published elsewhere. Nevertheless, it was still a shock to hear about them from council officials themselves in what proved to be a very gloomy meeting.

The intention is to cut the council budget by 10% over years 1 and 2, and then by another 10% over the period years 3 to 5, totalling £127 Million. Here are some of the things that were said at the meeting.

– There is no legal obligation for the council to fund parks, open spaces, street lighting or public toilets.

– There is an option to close all 9 public toilets in Aberdeen. One possibility being considered is to pay commercial properties to allow the public to use their toilets.

– The level of street cleaning may be reduced.

– An option is that once a council cemetery becomes full, not to maintain them and turn them into a wild life area.

– Reduce school crossing patrols, perhaps using them in the morning only and not at dinner time or the afternoon.

– Reduce expenditure on bus shelters.

– Car parking charges to increase every second year.

The council are looking for consultation on the cuts. In an angry exchange, it was mentioned that it was difficult to take the council seriously on this after the City Square debacle. The council executive assured everybody that they were serious about listening to the public.

Some suggestions were made in the discussion that followed. The council fund ACSEF by £230,000 a year, a figure confirmed at the meeting, and they could easily afford to fund themselves. It appears that there is a three-way agreement between Aberdeen council, Aberdeenshire council and Scottish Enterprise to fund ACSEF and the next review of this agreement is over a year away. Nevertheless, cutting funding to ACSEF is an option that has been considered.

Another idea was to put a moratorium on further council borrowing, particularly as a large part of the revenue budget services the debt. We were told that this wasn’t a practical idea as certain departments required unavoidable investment.

One ACSEF supporter at the meeting replied to this that the city needed better infrastructure like approach roads, only to get the caustic reply that what was the point of better access to a city where there were no parks, no public toilets and the cemeteries were wild life areas.

Although no decisions have been made re. cuts, there is no doubt that the standard of public service in Aberdeen is going to decrease substantially over the next five years. Given the irony of an almost bankrupt council in a rich oil town, JK Galbraiths dictum of private affluence and public squalor side by side will become painfully obvious before long. ‘

ConDem Cuts Hit Women Harder

Articles, Community, Featured, Information No Responses »

Sep 172010

Voice’s Dave Watt describes how the government’s budget cuts put women and children first.

A little known fact about Steig Larsson’s celebrated novel ‘The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo’ was that the original Swedish title was ‘The Man Who Hated Women’ (Män Som Hatar Kvinnor) and while I don’t think the ConDem coalition has any particular hatred for women, they are certainly going to be beating on them pretty badly with a disproportionate burden of the budget cuts.

A gender audit of the Budget, commissioned by MP Yvette Cooper found that of the £8bn net revenue to be raised by financial year 2014-15, nearly £6bn will be from women, in contrast with just over £2bn from men.

Responding to the study’s findings, Ms Cooper said: “I cannot recall any budget that has ever had such a severe attack on women in the history of the welfare state. Cameron and Clegg …..simply don’t get that things like the child tax credit help millions of women manage to balance work and family life.”

perhaps the ConDems simply saw them as an easy, pliable target that wouldn’t be out protesting in the streets.

The cuts have also drastically reduced support for children more savagely than anything else so far with billions of pounds being cut from child benefit, child tax credits, maternity support and child trust funds.

Amongst the reports’s key findings are:

● Of £8.1bn net personal tax increases/ benefit cuts, an estimated £5.8bn (72 per cent) is being paid by women and £2.2bn (28 per cent) is being paid by men.

• Support for children is being cut by £2.4bn – including cuts in Sure Start maternity grant, health in pregnancy grant, child benefit and tax credits. The majority of this support is paid to women. A further £560m cut from the Child Trust Fund is not included in the gender audit.

• Even excluding support for children, women still pay £3.6bn (66 per cent) compared to men paying £1.9bn (34 per cent). This is because women are more heavily affected by things like housing benefit cuts and the switch to CPI uprating of the additional state pension and public sector pensions.

Women have, in general, have traditionally tended to be more politically conservative than men (and indeed the Nazi vote before 1933 was largely female) and perhaps the ConDems simply saw them as an easy, pliable target that wouldn’t be out protesting in the streets. Whatever the rationale, any women who voted for the Conservatives or the Lib-Dems last May are going to find themselves being very poorly rewarded for putting their cross in either of those two little boxes.

Obviously, the cuts will hardly affect the ultra rich (Baroness Warsi won’t be taking up that early morning office cleaning job just yet) but her poorer sisters: the working mothers, the single parents and the other women who can just about make ends meet at present are going to suffer very badly and very unfairly from these economic cuts.

Atos: Do they give one?

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Jul 232010

By Ross Cunningham.

There has been much controversy aired recently about benefits and those claiming them. With a new coalition government in place, they hurriedly arranged an emergency budget to set about slashing the £150bn deficit in public finances. One of the higher-spending areas is benefits. In 2009-10, it is estimated that £3.1bn was overpaid in benefits due to error and fraud. Conversely, estimates show that £1.3bn was underpaid due to error and fraud. You would be inclined to believe that the second statistic is of less concern as is the perception that overpayment has been made to people who neither need nor deserve it. But how is it decided who is worthy of benefits and who is not? Who makes these decisions and who else is involved?

The People’s Budget

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Opinion No Responses »

Jul 162010

By John Sangster.

A new government with new thinking, a new way of looking at things? This is what we were told when an agreement was made between Tweedle Cameron and Tweedle Clegg. We were told that the first thing we must do is save money, make cuts, every single penny we save is good for the country. So taking my role as a model citizen very seriously I have come up with an alternative budget.

Newer Entries