1000 take part in council consultation
Carmarthenshire County Council has thanked over 1000 local residents and businesses for taking part in their recent consultation on the council’s budget for the coming year.
The consultation included a two page survey in the local press and on the council’s website, a meeting with business ratepayers and a focus group with representatives of the Citizens Panel, the Older Persons Forum, the Youth Forum and the equalities group.
Council Leader Cllr. Meryl Gravell said “This is by far the biggest consultation the council has ever held on its budget and we want to say a big thank you to so many people for taking part. Most importantly, we hope it will be evident to them that we have genuinely listened to what they have to say and have modified our proposals accordingly.
“We have faced our toughest budget ever this year and need to make £11.5million worth of savings for the coming 12 months, and £25 million in total over the next three years. We want to protect front line services as much as possible but we also want to make sure that any increase in council tax is kept as low as possible, and certainly below the current level of inflation. This is a difficult balancing act and the public’s input has been invaluable in helping us to strike the right balance.
“In order to protect front line services the council has already achieved savings of around £7 million in back office costs for the coming year. We have frozen recruitment except for essential posts and have cut out all unnecessary overtime. Our senior officers have already accepted a voluntary pay freeze which is now in its second year and this is being extended to all council staff with the exception of some protection being considered for the lower paid. All non-vital spending has been brought to a halt. Over the next three years these back-office savings will save up to £14 million without impacting directly on services to the public. But, they will not be painless. We expect to see up to 450 jobs disappear over this period but we hope that in most cases this will be though natural wastage rather than forced redundancies.
“Because of these savings we have actually been able to invest over £3 million extra into social services for the coming year, a budget increase of almost four percent, and half a million extra into education and children’s services. These increases are inevitable due to the growing numbers of older people within the population and the increasing demand on children’s social services and it is quite an achievement to have been able to make this additional investment at a time of such financial pressure.”
The results of the public consultation will be considered by the council’s Executive Board on the 14th February.
Top of the public’s priorities was highway maintenance with 63% of those responding to the survey opposing reductions in spending.
Executive Board Member for the Environment Cllr. Philip Hughes said “We are proposing to council that we invest an additional £1million from our capital programme in highways maintenance next year.
"This is on top of additional support which is coming from the Welsh Assembly Government to help repair damage due to the recent cold weather, so we will see a significant investment in our roads network this year."
The council had also considered closing up to 23 of its branch libraries. In the survey 56% of people came out against this proposal.
As a result the council is scaling back it’s proposal considerably and will this year only now look at five small branch libraries with the lowest usage or highest unit costs.
Executive Board Member for Education and Children’s Services, Cllr. Gwynne Wooldridge said, ”Because of the financial situation we will have to look closely at those libraries with low usage figures, but any branch closure will be offset by making sure that people have access to our excellent mobile library service instead.”
The council’s Executive Board will also now propose dropping a number of other proposals from the council’s plans for the coming year, including ending free transport to school or college for pupils over 16.
The survey showed strong support for the council’s CCTV service. Executive Board Member for Community Safety, Cllr Pam Palmer, said, “We have around 80 CCTV cameras across the county, mainly in the main town centres of Carmarthen, Llanelli and Ammanford. It was pleasing to see the high level of public support for this service which not only acts as a deterrent but also often helps identify those responsible for crimes and bring them to justice. All of these cameras will be retained and we will in fact be improving coverage in some places such as Burry Port.”
Public opinion was mixed on the issue of residential care for the elderly with 48% opposing closure of residential homes and 38% favouring some closures by taking up vacant places in other homes. 14% were undecided. However, a separate consultation with a focus group drawn from various representative groups showed a majority in favour.
Executive Board Member for Social Care, Cllr Pat Jones said, “We are in the middle of an investment programme in residential care. We have worked with partners to build three new homes in recent years and have two more planned, one in the Amman Valley and one in Carmarthen. At any given time we have around 70 vacant places in our homes and this is costing us around a million pounds a year which we could be spending on better care for people, especially supporting people in their own homes which is what people tell us they prefer. Also, some of our existing homes are out of date or need of significant modernisation and upgrading and cannot be left in their current condition. We also need to revise the type of places we are offering, and especially to increase the proportion of places suitable to those with dementia. All of this means that we cannot just continue to leave things exactly as they are. However, other than one relatively small facility which now has only a handful of residents, we will not be proposing to close any other homes this year and will continue to consult residents and their families at every stage of our investment programme."
Opinion was also mixed on the issue of increasing school meal prices, which had been proposed to rise annually for the next three years. 41% were in favour of increasing prices and 48% were against with 11% undecided.
The council is proposing to introduce the first year’s increase only at present and to closely monitor the impact on this service, which costs the council around £2million per annum.
Executive Board Member Cllr. Gwynne Wooldridge said, ”Around 30% of pupils, those from families with the lowest incomes, receive free school meals and so will be unaffected in any event, but we will be monitoring the impact of this year’s increase closely before deciding to proceed with any further increases.”
For most of the other proposals in the council’s consultation there was a majority in favour.
This includes ending the provision of free black bags for refuse, which will save the council £135,000 a year.
It also includes suspending new and replacement bus shelters, reviewing adult education and youth centre provision and reducing spending on the school music service.
The consultation also favoured a rearrangement of specialist Welsh language teaching support through the Athrawon Bro service, with a greater emphasis on increasing bilingualism and a greater focus on areas where the Welsh language is relatively weakest.
The consultation included a two page survey in the local press and on the council’s website, a meeting with business ratepayers and a focus group with representatives of the Citizens Panel, the Older Persons Forum, the Youth Forum and the equalities group.
Council Leader Cllr. Meryl Gravell said “This is by far the biggest consultation the council has ever held on its budget and we want to say a big thank you to so many people for taking part. Most importantly, we hope it will be evident to them that we have genuinely listened to what they have to say and have modified our proposals accordingly.
“We have faced our toughest budget ever this year and need to make £11.5million worth of savings for the coming 12 months, and £25 million in total over the next three years. We want to protect front line services as much as possible but we also want to make sure that any increase in council tax is kept as low as possible, and certainly below the current level of inflation. This is a difficult balancing act and the public’s input has been invaluable in helping us to strike the right balance.
“In order to protect front line services the council has already achieved savings of around £7 million in back office costs for the coming year. We have frozen recruitment except for essential posts and have cut out all unnecessary overtime. Our senior officers have already accepted a voluntary pay freeze which is now in its second year and this is being extended to all council staff with the exception of some protection being considered for the lower paid. All non-vital spending has been brought to a halt. Over the next three years these back-office savings will save up to £14 million without impacting directly on services to the public. But, they will not be painless. We expect to see up to 450 jobs disappear over this period but we hope that in most cases this will be though natural wastage rather than forced redundancies.
“Because of these savings we have actually been able to invest over £3 million extra into social services for the coming year, a budget increase of almost four percent, and half a million extra into education and children’s services. These increases are inevitable due to the growing numbers of older people within the population and the increasing demand on children’s social services and it is quite an achievement to have been able to make this additional investment at a time of such financial pressure.”
The results of the public consultation will be considered by the council’s Executive Board on the 14th February.
Top of the public’s priorities was highway maintenance with 63% of those responding to the survey opposing reductions in spending.
Executive Board Member for the Environment Cllr. Philip Hughes said “We are proposing to council that we invest an additional £1million from our capital programme in highways maintenance next year.
"This is on top of additional support which is coming from the Welsh Assembly Government to help repair damage due to the recent cold weather, so we will see a significant investment in our roads network this year."
The council had also considered closing up to 23 of its branch libraries. In the survey 56% of people came out against this proposal.
As a result the council is scaling back it’s proposal considerably and will this year only now look at five small branch libraries with the lowest usage or highest unit costs.
Executive Board Member for Education and Children’s Services, Cllr. Gwynne Wooldridge said, ”Because of the financial situation we will have to look closely at those libraries with low usage figures, but any branch closure will be offset by making sure that people have access to our excellent mobile library service instead.”
The council’s Executive Board will also now propose dropping a number of other proposals from the council’s plans for the coming year, including ending free transport to school or college for pupils over 16.
The survey showed strong support for the council’s CCTV service. Executive Board Member for Community Safety, Cllr Pam Palmer, said, “We have around 80 CCTV cameras across the county, mainly in the main town centres of Carmarthen, Llanelli and Ammanford. It was pleasing to see the high level of public support for this service which not only acts as a deterrent but also often helps identify those responsible for crimes and bring them to justice. All of these cameras will be retained and we will in fact be improving coverage in some places such as Burry Port.”
Public opinion was mixed on the issue of residential care for the elderly with 48% opposing closure of residential homes and 38% favouring some closures by taking up vacant places in other homes. 14% were undecided. However, a separate consultation with a focus group drawn from various representative groups showed a majority in favour.
Executive Board Member for Social Care, Cllr Pat Jones said, “We are in the middle of an investment programme in residential care. We have worked with partners to build three new homes in recent years and have two more planned, one in the Amman Valley and one in Carmarthen. At any given time we have around 70 vacant places in our homes and this is costing us around a million pounds a year which we could be spending on better care for people, especially supporting people in their own homes which is what people tell us they prefer. Also, some of our existing homes are out of date or need of significant modernisation and upgrading and cannot be left in their current condition. We also need to revise the type of places we are offering, and especially to increase the proportion of places suitable to those with dementia. All of this means that we cannot just continue to leave things exactly as they are. However, other than one relatively small facility which now has only a handful of residents, we will not be proposing to close any other homes this year and will continue to consult residents and their families at every stage of our investment programme."
Opinion was also mixed on the issue of increasing school meal prices, which had been proposed to rise annually for the next three years. 41% were in favour of increasing prices and 48% were against with 11% undecided.
The council is proposing to introduce the first year’s increase only at present and to closely monitor the impact on this service, which costs the council around £2million per annum.
Executive Board Member Cllr. Gwynne Wooldridge said, ”Around 30% of pupils, those from families with the lowest incomes, receive free school meals and so will be unaffected in any event, but we will be monitoring the impact of this year’s increase closely before deciding to proceed with any further increases.”
For most of the other proposals in the council’s consultation there was a majority in favour.
This includes ending the provision of free black bags for refuse, which will save the council £135,000 a year.
It also includes suspending new and replacement bus shelters, reviewing adult education and youth centre provision and reducing spending on the school music service.
The consultation also favoured a rearrangement of specialist Welsh language teaching support through the Athrawon Bro service, with a greater emphasis on increasing bilingualism and a greater focus on areas where the Welsh language is relatively weakest.
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