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redimanager
#1 Posted : 11 January 2012 17:36:16(UTC)
Rank: Advanced Member

Joined: 12/12/2007(UTC)
Posts: 1,023
Every year, the Council has to set a balanced budget. You Choose lets you say how you think the Council should balance its Budget.

Last year the Council agreed a three-year plan to save £25m as part of the Government's plans to reduce public spending. Redbridge Council’s priority is to protect frontline services as far as possible, particularly for vulnerable people.

We are already on track to meet our target. We have made savings of £14m so far and have to save a further £7m so we can freeze Council Tax. Our proposals for how we can save money this year are listed on You Choose, the Council’s online budget consultation tool.

Visit the Redbridge Conversation Page here
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thebutler66
#2 Posted : 13 January 2012 11:53:21(UTC)
Rank: Newbie

Joined: 06/10/2010(UTC)
Posts: 2
Just carried out the you choose 2012. By reducing all the budgets by 4.1% or 4.2% there are no consequences to services, no cuts or efficiency savings have to be made and the council will not have to increase council tax.

Am I a financial genius or is it just a case of this being a flawed system that is a waste of time completing?

Confused Confused Confused Confused Confused Confused
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keith69
#3 Posted : 22 January 2012 09:27:38(UTC)
Rank: Newbie

Joined: 17/07/2011(UTC)
Posts: 8
I found the whole exercise timewasting, as there is no facility to provide alternative reasoned proposals and for these to register on the 'Cashometer'. "You'll sit where we tell you - which do you prefer, a rock or a hard place?".

There is no need to save £7million in 2012/13, when the Cabinet Budget proposals recommend *increases* in Reserves - £1.0million in 'Budget Markers', £1.0million in 'Change Management Funds' and £1.225million in 'Transfer to Resource Reserves'. (These are increases, mind, over original figures put forward on 03 March 2011 - which were how much, exactly..oh, they're not included in the 'Budgets'...)

When the children are starving you don't hoard food for a rainy day. And before anyone spouts off about 'prudent' and 'cautious' financial planning for future years - if it is so essential to put £3.225million up the wall in 2012/13 why is it than 2013/14 and 2014/15 increases are £0?

Keith Stanbury
Chair - GRASS
Goodmayes Residents Association
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Morris Hickey
#4 Posted : 22 January 2012 10:12:21(UTC)
Rank: Advanced Member

Joined: 06/06/2007(UTC)
Posts: 1,399
Location: Too close to Redbridge-i censorship
That, Keith, is because they're now controlled by poor musicians: they don't know their brass from their oboe.Wink
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keith69
#5 Posted : 23 January 2012 15:39:14(UTC)
Rank: Newbie

Joined: 17/07/2011(UTC)
Posts: 8
Morris Hickey;13416 wrote:
That, Keith, is because they're now controlled by poor musicians: they don't know their brass from their oboe.Wink


Some of the musicians I know (of Redbridge Councillors and officers) are excellent - the Mayor's Charity Appeal, for which many of them gave up their New Year's Eve 'recovery' evening is an example..

(..you should try and get out more, Morris..)

You have looked at the Budgets, yes? Did you spot the (ASS303)? What!! Ageing population and Cllr Fairly-Churchill proposes a £1.009million reduction! What planet does he, or his officers, live on? We're *GETTING OLDER* We're *GONNA NEED MORE, NOT LESS!*

Or the (PBE311) reduction of £100grand? Good, innit - we're inundated with squatters/anti-social neighbours/fly-tipping/ recovery of rents/rates liabilities/a list of planning Enforcement Notices that go back to 2008 - yet the Redbridge 'grandees' think now is the time to reduce costs by saving court fees to recover the money we're owed. Boy! - is that a signal to every 'wannabe' in the area to ignore this Council's demands... why not put a huge great sign up - "IGNORE YOUR COUNCIL BILLS*

Give me strength. Ineptitude demonstrated by complacent leadership. Chief Executive -> Borough Solicitor -> Heads of Departments = I have no time for you - and nor should Redbridge ratepayers. You kow-tow to political demands, not the 'good of the ratepayer' ... who pays you.

How on earth do the really good council people whom I deal with stand this incompetence?


Keith Stanbury
Chair - GRASS
Goodmayes Residents Association

<no wink - punch in the arm..)
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cllrbond
#6 Posted : 24 January 2012 07:49:15(UTC)
Rank: Advanced Member

Joined: 01/10/2007(UTC)
Posts: 124
@thebutler please have another try; we're hoping you won't be able to repeat the trick

@keith the key challenge for our three-year budget is to reduce our ongoing expenditure over the three years so that the revenue cost of providing our services is reduced by 2013/14, reflecting our lower income due to government grant cuts. No-one expects the cuts to be temporary, and indeed there is every expectation that the years after 2014 may continue to be difficult, as all the political parties are recognising. Any lump sums we are able to earmark along the way to help us implement the significant challenges coming down the track from government (e.g. the new Council Tax Benefit regime, the localisation of Business Rates, the transfer of other benefit work to the DWP as part of th Univeral Credit) are helpful but we cannot balance the books with one-off amounts so this doesn't avoid the need to make savings that are recurring.

In YouChoose, obviously it's a simplified model intended to collect people's broad preferences about spending and saving. If you have specific ideas to suggest, please use the write-in box.

On Social Services, we are proposing to invest additional resources next year to continue to meet rising demand. A lot of this will be in support of the government's reenablement strategy helping older people to continue living at home. Spending more on social services does of course increase the pressure on other budgets, and we're looking efficiencies and savings everywhere including within our base social service spend itself, as you have identified.
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weggis
#7 Posted : 24 January 2012 14:54:07(UTC)
Rank: Advanced Member

Joined: 04/07/2007(UTC)
Posts: 564
Location: Redbridge Eye
cllrbond wrote:
@thebutler please have another try; we're hoping you won't be able to repeat the trick

I'm hoping he CAN repeat the trick and then tell you how to do it!
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weggis
#8 Posted : 24 January 2012 17:42:14(UTC)
Rank: Advanced Member

Joined: 04/07/2007(UTC)
Posts: 564
Location: Redbridge Eye
Not sure where to post this?
There is also the thread on Reduce, Reuse and Recycle ....

As part of the savings programme it is proposed to reduce (no pun intended) the green waste kerbside collection scheme from weekly to fortnightly. Some councillors are opposed to this as reported in the WWGuardian.

I think this service is brilliant and I use it, BUT I don't use it every week.
I also do my own composting, so it's only the stuff I don't want to put on there or can't shred.

My only worry is the message that this move gives rather than its potential impact in the take up of the service.

What do other readers think?
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interested on 27/01/2012(UTC)
Morris Hickey
#9 Posted : 24 January 2012 20:34:39(UTC)
Rank: Advanced Member

Joined: 06/06/2007(UTC)
Posts: 1,399
Location: Too close to Redbridge-i censorship
weggis;13425 wrote:


What do other readers think?


Councillors appear only too ready to cut anything and everything with just three exceptions:

(a) their own numbers;
(b) their own "allowances"; and
(c) senior staff salaries (and therefore the employer's contributions to national insurance and the pension scheme).
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cllrbond
#10 Posted : 24 January 2012 21:34:20(UTC)
Rank: Advanced Member

Joined: 01/10/2007(UTC)
Posts: 124
Morris - you wouldn't recognise the council nowadays in comparison with the culture of waste and profligacy that ruled the day when you and your colleagues commanded a majority!
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Morris Hickey
#11 Posted : 24 January 2012 22:20:10(UTC)
Rank: Advanced Member

Joined: 06/06/2007(UTC)
Posts: 1,399
Location: Too close to Redbridge-i censorship
cllrbond;13427 wrote:
Morris - you wouldn't recognise the council nowadays in comparison with the culture of waste and profligacy that ruled the day when you and your colleagues commanded a majority!



Yes - it's inevitable that it should be so much better with you in a senior position. The scourge of the council for 16 years becomes its greatest patron in under 2 years. I would be far more impressed if correspondence was answered in reasonable time and not just ignored or fudged.
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keith69
#12 Posted : 26 January 2012 18:01:16(UTC)
Rank: Newbie

Joined: 17/07/2011(UTC)
Posts: 8
To refer to Ian Bond - firstly I thank both you, Ian, and Keith Prince for attending Area 5 Meeting last Monday. Many questions which I - and other Goodmayes residents (and Councillors??) - wished to ask were unspoken, due to the time limitations caused by this crucial matter being scheduled into a 'normal' Area agenda.. Thank you, Cllr White (Chair) for allowing as much time as you did.

( Leader and Deputy Leader ..you make a good double act - can I ask, which is Waldorf and which Stadler..? okay - my bad attempt at humour..)

You have still not answered the questions I managed to put at the meeting - why do we have £1million put up the wall for "Budget Markers" (which are what, exactly? you never did explain..) and why the Director - Finance has put forward his reasoned assessment (a.k.a. 'guesstimate') to propose (your rubber-stamped figure of) £1.225 million (an 8% addition) to 'General Reserves'?

No - I do not accept (personally) your qualified explanation that uncertainty demands prudency - we're starving, man! Redbridge does *NOT* need to whack over £1.2million of 'uncertainty' up the wall. It's 8%? - they haven't proposed 8% in *any other CON-DEM controlled London Borough* - why do you feel we're underprovided? Did the 'Wrecking Crew' (oops, I mean 'senior, experienced, qualified officers) screw up on previous 'estimates'?

What makes you think you're a better risk-assessor? - Tell me - is it 'Parliamentary' aspirations that drive you personally, Ian? You certainly have the spiel for it..

You said that the £1million 'Change Management Fund' budget was to give you (as Cabinet Member - Resource) the facility to employ consultants to advise you on savings. Hmm... can you make do with £904,185.27? Give or take a few bob? That would give ratepayers the restored budget to go after non-payers, squatters, fly-tippers and the other blots on our local society who need "re-engineering" and get us towards the fit and proper society to which we all aspire..

Onwards - can you give Goodmayes Ward residents your assurance that these proposed cuts will be skewed towards need? (If you don't understand me I'll expand on this matter). On a Ward-by-Ward basis? We are not Snaresbrook, nor Wanstead, nor Barkingside (safe havens for the Redbridge elitist and wealthy, according to my downloaded demographic analysis) and your much-vaunted 'school places expansion' in Ilford South does naff-all for the ageing and needy families in Goodmayes, it merely demonstrates that we are the preferred area for you to improve the faciltiies for the young, without any recognition of the infrastructure commitment this demands.

Additionally - can you outline your future plans in regards to the 'Area Committees'? Are these to remain? With 'Discretionary Budgets'? Or are they another target for your (personal) 'committee -cutting' agenda, which you so proudly expounded on Monday night as a condition for sharing power with the Conservatives?



Keith Stanbury
Chair - GRASS
Goodmayes Residents Association
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cllrbond
#13 Posted : 27 January 2012 07:22:16(UTC)
Rank: Advanced Member

Joined: 01/10/2007(UTC)
Posts: 124
Keith - thanks for the kind words

The key point to make about the budget is that the Government is reducing our funding year-on-year, which forces us to reduce our spending in the same way. The biggest challenge is to get our spending down by 2014. So far we're ahead of target, recognising of course that the early savings are generally the easier ones. Hence we're able to make some one-off provisions to help us deal with the significant issues coming down the track, which I set out above. These one-off sums cannot help us avoid the savings we'll have to make by 2014 but they can help us prepare for and manage them more effectively.

On the impact of the cuts it is too early to give a definitive answer. There's an interesting article from the BBC here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16744676 based on some research done by the Rowntree foundation. This indicates that councils generally are doing our best to protect those areas of our services that support the most vulnerable - at your Area Committee I mentioned the extra investments in social services and new schools that we're able to make in Redbridge even in these difficult times. The research also makes the point that, since richer people are generally less reliant on council services, it will never be possible for any council to avoid some inequality of impact, which underpins the arguments my national colleagues have been making this week about the fairness of our tax system.

On Area Committees I was the person who first proposed that Redbridge should devolve local decisions to local committees, and hold meetings out and about in the Borough to enable local people to come along and get involved. In terms of participation and engagement our Area Committees are one of the most positive initiatives the council has taken, compared to the old days when we were lucky if more than two or three people turned up to a committee meeting in the Town Hall. It's a key part of our Partnership Agreement to run the council that we "protect and enhance our area committees". It's down to the councillors at each committee to reach out to involve local people and encourage a good audience with a high level of participation - having visited most of them around Redbridge over the last few years, it is only fair to say that some have been more successful than others in doing this and there is room for all of them to improve.
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interested
#14 Posted : 27 January 2012 21:07:50(UTC)
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Joined: 11/06/2008(UTC)
Posts: 9
Responding to weggis re: green colloections. I agree that the collections could move to fortnightly as the council rarely met the weekly pick ups last summer and it should save some cash.
I must say that I was more than a bit taken aback to read in this week's Recorder (page24 Area committee focus) that Cllr Goody thought that reducing the green waste pick up to fortnightly was a "matter of extreme concern". I can think of alot more pressing issues in the borough at the moment than this subject!
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weggis on 30/01/2012(UTC)
weggis
#15 Posted : 30 January 2012 16:30:06(UTC)
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Joined: 04/07/2007(UTC)
Posts: 564
Location: Redbridge Eye
interested wrote:
I can think of alot more pressing issues in the borough at the moment than this subject!

Unfortunately, it's not quite as simple as that. This could be one of those "budget bear traps" that Morris Hickey speaks of.

See the Barkingside 21 blog.
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Morris Hickey
#16 Posted : 30 January 2012 16:41:36(UTC)
Rank: Advanced Member

Joined: 06/06/2007(UTC)
Posts: 1,399
Location: Too close to Redbridge-i censorship
weggis;13443 wrote:
interested wrote:
I can think of alot more pressing issues in the borough at the moment than this subject!

Unfortunately, it's not quite as simple as that. This could be one of those "budget bear traps" that Morris Hickey speaks of.

See the Barkingside 21 blog.


Well at least on Barkingside 21 blog I'm allowed to speak. On Redbridge-i it's more likely to be removed by the "moderator".
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barkingside 21 on 02/02/2012(UTC)
interested
#20 Posted : 30 January 2012 22:29:51(UTC)
Rank: Newbie

Joined: 11/06/2008(UTC)
Posts: 9
Thanks for the link to Barkingside 21 - I read the article and see where you are coming from. Anyone know what happens to our green waste? Some councils recoup money by bagging compost and selling it back to residents at a cut price.Where does ours go...
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cllrbond
#21 Posted : 31 January 2012 08:27:13(UTC)
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Joined: 01/10/2007(UTC)
Posts: 124
The green garden waste is taken for composting locally. Composting is nature's way of recycling. By turning garden waste into compost less rubbish will end up in landfill, which means less greenhouse gases!
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annesevant
#22 Posted : 31 January 2012 15:17:37(UTC)
Rank: Advanced Member

Joined: 14/07/2007(UTC)
Posts: 975
I am pretty sure you can buy bags of compost at the Chigwell Road Recycling depot, at a very reasonable price. Some allotmenteers on our site do use it and it appears to to the job.
Is it marked ''Made in Redbridge from Green Waste collected in Redbridge'', I don't know. It should!
Would you have to prove residence in Redbridge before you purchase? I would imagine so and that's probably a bit unconstructive.
And, if they have to pay somebody to take the money for the bags it might be a bit of ,at best, a non-profit maker venture.
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barkingside 21
#17 Posted : 02 February 2012 13:20:06(UTC)
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Joined: 21/08/2007(UTC)
Posts: 89
Location: Barkingside
Morris Hickey wrote:
Well at least on Barkingside 21 blog I'm allowed to speak. On Redbridge-i it's more likely to be removed by the "moderator".

Morris,
The trouble with being a Moderator is that it is rather like being a Premier League Football Referee.
We are expected to use our judgement and common sense but at the same time also be consistent.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blo...in_black_some_slac.html



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Morris Hickey on 02/02/2012(UTC)
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