D-Day for Lewisham council cuts
Lewisham is facing cuts from its budget amounting to between £50-60m over the next three financial years. At the Mayor and Cabinet meeting on the 17 November the Mayor and Cabinet is expected to approve the first tranche of these cuts – £19.78m over three years plus a further £12.7m savings where consultation with staff and public are currently taking place.
A decision on closing five Lewisham libraries has been postponed for two months pending further investigations on “alternative community library proposals” and the cost of moving to these alternatives (see http://www.mayorsteve.co.uk/ ).
Here are some of the cuts expected to be approved at the meeting:
- Severely cutting the borough’s economic development unit with the loss of 22 jobs, meaning that there will be no community business support and no town centre managers
- Reducing the number of flower beds in parks – a saving of £30,000
- The financial control department to reduce cost and staff saving £943,000
- Corporate communication department’s budget to be cut by £97,000 (£64,000 of this to be saved by cutting Lewisham Life from 10 issues per year to six)
- Reduce park investment by £396,000 which will mean fewer Green Parks, hanging baskets and street planting
- Head of strategy department to be cut – savings £70,000; loss of three posts
- No more spraying of weeds on streets and pavements saving £50,000
- Saving £170,000 by reducing the amount of printing and photocopying by borough
- IT savings of £1.3m by sharing services with Bromley council; IT data services to save a further £200,000
- Mayor’s Fund (giving grants to local wards) cut by 25%; Local Assembly grants budget cut by £45,000 and admin costs for LA cut by £31,000
- Close Clyde Children’s Centre (Deptford) and reduce budgets of Early Years Centres in Rushey Green, Honor Oak and Ladywell to save £2.1m
- Reduce Lewisham’s contribution to Arts and Brodway Theatre by £43,000; One Lewisham Funs for Arts support also reduced by £25,000
- Cut Lewisham’s contribution to borough’s Police Support Team by £125,000 (currently £250,000) resulting in “changes to PCSO deployment” . Note – this was postponed by M&C on the night
- £450,000 cut in “Valuing People Agenda” (due to personal care packages scheme for elderly and disabled currently being proposed by central government); some savings could be gained by closing existing day care centres
- A £22.84 charge to households for replacing lost, damaged or stolen wheely bins. Note – this was postponed by M&C on the night
- £63,000 cut in waste advisors who encourage recycling
- A reduction in the strategy and performance division saving £278,000
- Amalgamating the community safety service and the community wardens service to create three area based neighbourhood safety teams and reduce staffing – saving £811,000
For full details of proposed cuts see: