The cash dividend from Manchester Airport has been used by Manchester City Council to partly offset the impact of required cuts in the coming financial year.
This morning the council have published their provisional budget for 2015-16 which shows the council now faces a reduced funding shortfall of £50m rather than the original £ 59m that were proposed in 2015/16.
Among the original proposals now seemingly shelved is the option not to end free swimming for the under-16s and over-60s and instead of 40 out of the 95 school crossing patrols being cut, each crossing will now be looked at on a case by case basis, with reductions only where this can be absolutely justified.
The vast majority of the dividend will be used the Children and Families directorate to help support the most vulnerable people, in some cases reducing the need for more expensive services further down the line.
The draft budget also includes options of £400,000 to bolster city and district centre street cleaning arrangements; £650,000 for education, engagement and enforcement activity around waste and recycling (which will help deliver savings in the levy the council has to pay for waste) and £440,000 to help attract further investment in the city’s parks.
There will also be £200,000 to support enforcement in tackling noise nuisance, anti social behaviour and ensuring licensed premises are properly run.
The loss of between 450 and 550 full time posts from the council’s workforce will account for almost 20 per cent of the savings required, although the reinvestment options, if agreed, will reduce the net loss by around 43 posts. This is on top of around 3,400 full time jobs which have been lost since 2010/11, which was more than a third of the Council’s workforce.
The Council has already had to make £250m of cuts between 2011 and 2015.
Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, said: “Manchester has faced successive unfair financial settlements from this government which have made delivering services to the city’s people ever more challenging. This is not a good news story – it’s almost £50m of cuts in 2015/16 rather than almost £60m -but the extra money through our stake in the airport has at least allowed us to look again at the budget options we had announced in November.
However Withington’s Lib Dem MP has criticized the political playmaking.
“There is a pattern of behaviour here. I predicted in November that Labour would exaggerate the cuts to scare people then “save frontline services”, just as they have done today. They knew they had an airport dividend coming, and have cynically talked about stopping School crossing patrols and free swimming for political effect.”
John added,
“Just yesterday, Ed Miliband was quoted as saying he wanted to weaponise’ the NHS for politics. He has also admitted that there is no extra money for Council’s like Manchester, so these cuts are happening whoever wins the General Election. The real cuts we all face because Labour messed up the economy are bad enough without Manchester Labour scaremongering and exaggeration.”
