Sunday 24 October 2010

What the cuts mean for Hastings

So now we know the worst. Government support to local councils is to be cut by 28% over the next four years. That is more than our worst case planning.


Hastings Borough Council has been working through the impacts of a possible 25% cut by 2014/15 but it is going to be bigger than that. And reductions of that scale cannot be made by efficiencies.

Of course the council must make itself as efficient as possible but a 28% reduction can only mean the council doing less than it does now. Some services may just have to stop, others seriously cut back.

Inevitably there will be less staff working for the council in five years time than there are now, although I and my colleagues will do everything to restrict compulsory redundancies to as few posts as possible.

In our Big Conversation with residents and staff which ends this week we have asked for any other ideas for reducing costs. Could volunteers do more than they already do in parts of the council, could some services be provided totally differently than they are now?

Sunderland council is inviting staff to consider if they would be interested in establishing cost-saving social enterprise businesses, such as community interest companies and co-operatives, which could take over some of the services they currently work in.

It’s possible that Hastings could be hit harder than other councils. Because of our additional needs we receive an additional £3 million per year in extra grants. The main component of that is Working Neighbourhoods Fund. The Chancellor announced in his statement last week that this Fund will be abolished at the end of the financial year.

So we could face the average 28% cut for all councils and see that additional grant just stop dead in April. If this is the case then the perverse result would be areas with greatest needs taking the greatest cut.

The reductions in the government’s main funds to councils might of course be carried out differentially so Hastings is cut less than affluent parts of Surrey, but we won’t know that till December.

Even if we wanted to we can’t make up the shortfall with extra council tax rises. Next year the council tax will be frozen with the government giving us a sum equivalent to a 2.5% rise. In future years the government will set its view on what the council tax increase should be and we could only go above that if residents approved it in a referendum.

All in all this is a very difficult time and some difficult decisions will have to be made. The Big Conversation will help us but in the end I and the other councillors have the duty to set the budget and residents will have to judge if we did our best.

Saturday 9 October 2010

Pier saga

When the phone goes off in the middle of the night you always expect it to be bad news. Last Monday it was – “The Pier’s on fire can you come down?” Of course I did and what I saw were orange flames many feet high devouring the ballroom.


Then they devoured the bridge section (where now there is no sign of a building ever being there), then they devoured the bingo hall section, the front and finally half of the apron buildings.

Going down many times since to speak to TV and radio there has always been a crowd of people just looking in disbelief, horror or almost paying their last respects to an old friend. The Pier really had a place in the hearts of local people because we had all been on it, many people when it really was a fun place – a real seaside attraction.

So what now? While I understand those who have set up the ‘RIP Hastings Pier’ Facebook site, let’s not read the last rites just yet.

The council has commissioned structural engineers who will be down in the next few days to investigate the extent of the damage to the cast iron columns and the substructure. And of course it is what’s underneath that is the Victorian heritage that made the Pier a listed building. What was on top dated from many different eras, even from 1999/2000.

If the substructure is sound the Pier Trust and the council may still be able to find external funders who are committed to preserving the architectural heritage of the Pier. It would take a lot of investment but clearly the only way to maintain that heritage is then to rebuild on top to earn an income from visitors and townspeople alike.

There are no guarantees but we get nowhere without optimism and commitment and the Pier Trust has plenty of that.

So of course those very photogenic pictures of the fire took the front page of the Observer. Any other week the announcement of 800 new jobs for the town would have been the headline.

Saga will become the largest private sector employer in the town. They are purchasing a new office development in the town centre built by the local regeneration company – Seaspace. Work will now start to fit-out the building with Saga planning to start business there by the New Year. The staff will be employed by Saga’s expanding insurance business.

This is the best possible news for the town. After the tragedy of the Pier fire the announcement of substantial new job opportunities is lifting spirits locally. We really welcome Saga, we welcome the jobs and the boost they will bring to the local economy.

The success in attracting Saga proves the validity of the regeneration programme. The town centre office space was built precisely to attract quality businesses to Hastings – in Saga we have got just that.

I believe Hastings is really on the up. 800 new jobs on the way, the nationally significant Jerwood gallery due to open next year, the university centre second phase going up before our eyes. And we still haven’t given up on Hastings Pier

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Big Conversation - we're listening

The Big Conversation is well and truly under way. 1,200 questionnaires have been returned already and it runs till the end of the month. I have never known any consultation the council has conducted that has achieved this sort of result.

I am really pleased it has because it shows just how much local people care about public services and how they understand the difficulty we as councillors have responding to the cuts the government is planning.

But it’s not just the questionnaires it’s the chance to talk with residents. Last Saturday we took the Big Conversation to Kings Road. Some people wanted to talk to us about other matters – parking, dog fouling and individual concerns they had – and that’s fine. But overwhelmingly people appreciated that we were consulting them. Many had filled the forms out already, others did on the spot. There are other dates and venues coming up and they are all on the council website. Do come along if you want to chat to us.

But what about those thorny questions:

How much has it costed and where’s the money come from? Writing to every household has cost £17,000, but how else do you really reach everyone. The money had already been put in this year’s budget by the previous council leadership. They wanted to employ an outside company to do detailed market research interviews with 250 residents. I would rather speak to 2,500 and do the job in-house.

Are you really going to listen? We will publish the results of the Big Conversation, so when we finally set the budget everyone can see whether we listened. But in determining the budget we will also be looking at the priorities we put before the electorate back in May, the exact financial position which we don’t yet know and the implications of decisions – no point in cutting a service only to find it costs more somewhere else.

There’s not enough detail, especially on cost of services. There’s only so much information you can get into a four-page form and anything bigger might have meant less people would have had the time to read it. If anyone wants more information let us know, either in person at the Big Conversation events or E-mail bigconversation@hastings.gov.uk

Haven’t you already decided what you you’re going to do, like closing the Information Centre? The suggestion that we are just going to get rid of an information centre and the staff in it is utter and complete rubbish. I guarantee we will be keeping an information centre in the town and staffing it. There has been a discussion about whether we could relocate it. But when we are looking at spending cuts we would be wrong not to consider options. No decision has been made on possible relocation and I very much welcome residents’ comments as part of the Big Conversation.

Isn’t the council overstaffed, so why not just cut the numbers? We will have to look at every council service whether it is a statutory or discretionary to see if it can be provided more efficiently. The Big Conversation asks for comments on particular services and how much residents value them. They are all of course provided by council staff. Reducing any of those services means reducing the council staff who provide them. The question is what services are most essential or most valued.

Any other questions just ask away but most important use the Big Conversation to let us know what you think.