Council Budget 2012/2013
Hackney Council has agreed a budget for 2012/13 that once again makes no cuts to frontline services. The Council faces extreme financial pressure with further cuts in its grant from central government and other cost pressures including a hike in the contribution it pays towards the Freedom Pass. Despite this, residents will see no reduction in frontline services in this financial year.
At a meeting of Full Council on Tuesday 29 February 2012, the Mayor of Hackney, Jules Pipe presented a budget of £1.03bn to spend on education, housing, adult social care, children's services, sport and leisure, green spaces, crime reduction, refuse collection, recycling services, and street cleaning and maintenance.
In addition to the £25million savings that had to be made this year's, the Council also had to address a £44million funding gap last year. In spite of this, it has been able to protect frontline services so far through sound financial management, reductions in senior management, efficiency savings, and reductions to the budgets of back office functions such as ICT and communications.
However, the impact of further cuts in 2013/14 and 2014/15 will mean that very difficult decisions will have to be made. Mayor of Hackney Jules Pipe said:
"Annual savings have been used in the past to fund new services or expand existing ones, as well as freeze Council Tax. The Council continues to look for such savings, but now the cash saves must go into filling the gap created by the loss of government grant.
"However, any further savings that can be wrung out the Council's administrative and back office functions in future years will be dwarfed by the size of further reductions to our central government grant. We will keep looking for more and more efficient ways to do things but the fact is, in future years, we will not be able to absorb the impact of planned central government grants without services being affected."
The Council anticipates further savings of up to £40million will need to be found from the areas of spend it controls in 2013/14 and 2014/15 and will be engaging with residents to look at key budget priorities for these years.
Tell us your views
As tough decisions about future Council spending need to be made, we want to know what your priorities are. The Council will be consulting widely with residents over the coming months so please look out for further information on these pages and in Hackney Today.
Page updated: 29 Feb 2012
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