Blackpool Council unveils £20m in budget cuts and council tax to rise

Up to 40 jobs will be lost and council tax will increase by 4.99 per cent from April.

However no services or facilities will close with libraries and leisure centres among the key amenities protected.

The £10m investment is split between £6.6m into children’s social care and £3.4m into adult services.

The impact of the Covid pandemic has left the council £2.5m out of pocket, but that sum has been mitigated by government grants and the council’s own reserves.

A total of £3m is being invested into stategic assets such as the Tower from funds set aside for that purpose to be repaid out of future income.

Backroom costs are being cut by £1m, while the remainder of savings have been found across all departments including a £330,000 reduction in mileage claims as staff held meetings online instead of needing to travel.

Another £24,000 will be saved from councillors’ allowances by not filling three vacant cabinet and cabinet assistant roles.

The council’s government settlement, which is its core funding allocation, makes an assumption it will increase council tax by the maximum 4.99 per cent which will raise around £3m.

Council leader Coun Lynn Williams said during the last year the town had faced “unprecedented challenges in the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic.”

She warned this had come at a cost but the council would not compromise its support for the most vulnerable in society.

She said: “We have said repeatedly that we are not prepared to compromise the support that is needed to help and protect our children and the most vulnerable adults within our community, hence the very significant additional investment we are making in those services.”

Coun Williams said repeated reductions in government support had left the council with funding gaps totalling £166m since 2010.

She warned: “Against that backdrop, we have no choice than to increase council tax to offset some of this pressure.

“Our central Government settlement makes the assumption that we will be

required to increase council tax to the maximum level in order to protect vital services.”

Coun Williams said it was “disheartening” to ask staff to make further cuts in light of what they had faced in the past year.

She added: “Sadly, it just isn’t possible to make cuts of this magnitude without some job losses.

“We have been able to keep those to a minimum this year but there are workers and their families who will have received bad news this week. We will do everything possible to support them through this difficult time.”

The budget proposals will be discussed by the council’s executive committee on Monday February 8 at 6pm.

Chief executive Neil Jack said the “overwhelming position” was the council had to “do the same with less money”.

He added: “We were certainly concerned we would be talking about some eye watering cuts, but our absolute focus has been about protecting services for the most vulnerable.”

Impacts from Covid include the loss of annual dividends of £1m from Blackpool Transport and £300,000 from the Sandcastle water park which have either been closed or faced reduced demand during the pandemic.

Revenues such as car parking income have also been hit as the tourism industry was largely closed down.

While government grants have helped reduce the financial burden substantially, town hall leaders have had to find new ways of working to deliver many services.

Mr Jack said this had included a partnership approach, particularly sharing funds with other agencies such as the NHS clinical commissioning group.

Money from the Town Deal will be invested in the Illuminations helping to save £125,000 from running costs.

Ironically the pandemic has forced some savings, such as £150,000 from the events and marketing budget as lockdown curtailed the usual tourism programme.

All libraries will remain open, but £50,000 is being saved as lockdown has forced some investment to be delayed.

Meanwhile £1.4m has been saved from the Waste Services budget thanks to it running more efficiently since it was transferred back into public ownership.

Similarly a move to bring bin collections back in-house has cut costs, with £350,000 to be saved by merging the service with the street cleansing department.

Treasury management has also allowed £6.7m to be put back into the budget as part of a three year plan to redistribute £23m which had been set aside to repay debt but is no longer needed for that purpose.

This year’s cuts follow on from similar savings last year of nearly £20m with £14m invested in children’s services.

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