Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Savage Council cuts due to be confirmed tonight (Tuesday 21/12/10)
Older people's homes and day centres are facing mass closures as Haringey Council announces the largest funding cuts in its history.
Haringey has set out in stark detail the scale of closures facing the borough as £87 million is wiped from budgets over the next three years.
Four older people's homes providing residential care for pensioners will be closed across the borough and seven drop-in and day centres providing vital social contact and support for older people will also be shut, along with a mental health crisis unit and a mental health day care centre.
Jobs are set to go at libraries and Tottenham's Bruce Castle Museum and some council managers will be axed saving £2.5 million alone.
At the other end of the scale, free tea and coffee vending machines in council offices will be scrapped, saving £50,000 annually, and allotment fees will rise by £9 per plot.
The council released detailed plans for more than £28 million of savings between 2011 and 2014 on Friday (December 17).
But that is less than a third of the cuts needed to balance a £87 million black hole in the budget over the next three years. Further measures will be announced in the New Year.
The Government is making Haringey find more than half of the savings - £46 million - in the next year alone, with further cuts of around £20 million in each of the following two years.
Labour Councillor Joe Goldberg, cabinet member for finance and sustainability, said: "The overwhelming speed and scale of the Government’s cuts have left us with little room for manoeuvre – we have to make some incredibly tough decisions and we have to make them very quickly or they won’t have a great enough impact on next year’s spending.
The council's cabinet will consider the first wave of cuts at a meeting tonight (Tuesday, December 21) before they are put out for consultation.
The council says it will prioritise back office efficiency and explore sharing services to prioritise cash for those most in need, but services for older people are revealed as the hardest hit in the first wave of cuts.
* Cranwood Older People’s Home in Muswell Hill and Broadwater Lodge Older People’s Home in Tottenham will both be closed saving £1.1 million.
* Red House Residential Care Home in South Tottenham, which provides care for dementia patients and the frail, will close saving £714,000.
* Whitehall Residential Home in Tottenham, for people with learning difficulties, will close saving £237,000.
* Four drop-in centres for older people will close saving £234,000 - Abyssinia Court in Crouch End, Willoughby Road in Hornsey, The Drop-in Centre at The Irish Centre in Tottenham, and Woodside House in Wood Green.
* The Haven Day Centre in Tottenham, for people with physical disability and sensory impairment, to close, and The Grange Day Centre in White Hart Lane, Tottenham, to merge with The Haynes Day Centre in Crouch End, saving £234,000.
* Woodside Day Centre in Wood Green, used by 45 vulnerable older people, will close saving £149,000.
* Jacksons Lane Luncheon Club will lose £10,000 for a part time staff member, leaving its future unclear.
The closures will result in the complete loss of day care services for older people across the borough, except for dementia sufferers, and the council’s in-house home care service, offering personal care to vulnerable adults, will also cease saving £1.06 million.
Other services across the council facing cut backs include:
* Some council managers axed, saving £2.5 million.
* Connexions careers advice service for vulnerable young people reduced by 75 per cent saving £1.64 million.
* Staff cuts at libraries and Bruce Castle Museum saving £384,000.
* Reduced response to noise complaints, including stopping out-of-hours response service, saving £180,000.
* Cutbacks in mobile phone use by council staff saving £150,000.
* Review of translation services saving £124,000.
* No free tea and coffee in council vending machines saving £50,000.
* Allotment charges to rise by £9 a year, earning an extra £22,000.
More than 1,000 jobs are at risk and redunancy costs are likely to cost the council in the region of £10-20 million.
Consultation has begun with staff likely to be affected and a voluntary redundancy scheme has been set up.
Further savings plans are being drawn up and will be revealed in January and a balanced budget for 2011-2012 must be agreed by the Full Council in February.
Tags for Forum Posts: public spending cuts
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Hugh I don't know, I imagine they're similar but the argument that local government has to pay huge salaries to attract "talent" is similar to that used in the BBC to pay truly fantastic amounts of money to the senior executives and the likes of Jonathon Ross.
It could be a racket that is nation-wide – I'd be surprised if these pay scales were not set by those already in the system. But the real long-term impact is caused by the platinum-plated pensions.
Matt: thanks for the 'heads up' on Haringey Forward. Sounds a lot like Jim Hacker's Department of Administrative Affairs. Reckon I'd be feeling fairly forward on between £72K to £89K.
NB: LBH offered me *ranges* for the pay scales, so the actual salaries could be up to plus (or minus) about 15% around the rounded average. End-of-range figures used for calculation include the flat London Weighting (£1,734) plus the flat "Consolidated Allowance" (£2,489), i.e. an extra £4,223 on whatever the base salary was (included in the table above).
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Many of the top 100 (the Untouchables) will still be keeping each other equally busy after front line services have been slashed. At first glance at least, there seems to be some overlap and duplication amongst the top 100 – and those are the job titles that one can make sense of.
Hugh has argued that Haringey need to 'match' the salaries paid in other London Boroughs if LBH in order to be able to attract 'talent'. Seems to me as though we are paying Rolls Royce Phantom salaries for, in some cases, Trabant-class talent.
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'Fraid I don't have a detailed answer for you Hugh. However, I'd draw your attention to this article in the Islington Gazette from four years ago, around the same time as your thread.
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Permalink Reply by Dave on
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Interesting list Clive.
Add to that head teachers earning 70,000 and above. And there are 50 of them in Haringey.
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Permalink Reply by Lesley Ramm on
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If only huge salaries guaranteed excellent quality. In the case of Sharon Shoesmith it clearly did not. So they pay the next incumbent even more. Are children in Haringey any safer now? I suspect not.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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This is thoroughly depressing Hugh. Anything I can do to help? Pay more tax maybe? Thought not...
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Permalink Reply by Stuart on
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What's the point in even having a noise response unit if they are no longer going to operate out of hours? Isn't that the whole point - it's noise because it's happening at night-time. That seems irrational to me. How may day-time complaints can they possibly get?
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These attacks on services for the elderly, people with disabilities, the vulnerable are an absolute disgrace.
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Permalink Reply by Maddy on
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Yes, if they are going to cut 20% from front-line services I don't see why they should't cut 20% of top jobs at the same time - their input will no longer be needed. As far as I'm concerned we pay our council taxes for services, not as a job-creation scheme for the already well-paid. Off with their heads!
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Spoke to members of my health group walk today 9all woman in their late 50's early 60's) who have friends and relatives, or themselves, using these older peoples services (day care centres, lunch clubs, residential care homes).
all horrified by this news and completely unaware. They want "someone to do something about it". I did suggest the ballot box was the place to start but they would gladly join objectors - if they knew how. Most do not use IT so can be excluded. I also noted that the Haynes day care centre within the Park Rd Health Centre was officially opened In February 2010. and now it is to be closed. after costing how much? Hope residents mobilise to overturn these horrendous proposals. after all we are an aging population (some already old) and the need for such elder peoples care is growing.
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Perhaps we should start a campaign to withhold council tax unless it is guaranteed to be put substantially towards front-line services and not cushy salaries. I know the council has been forced by the government to make cuts, but for a supposedly left wing council they are behaving abominably in the choices they are making.
I've always considered that local councils function as a bit of a job-creation scheme, but that's OK because people need jobs. But this whole thing is making me sick. People on top salaries should be prepared to take a pay cut rather than see these essential services to the most vulnerable in our community just slashed, as though those people's lives meant absolutely nothing.
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Haringey a left wing council? Since when? And local councils functioning as job creation schemes?? What?
As for withholding council tax for the reasons you set out, well, best of luck. They come down pretty hard these days on people who don't pay, even if THEY mess up your direct debit/standing order. The only way forward on this line of thinking would be for a mass civil disobedience campaign in Haringey and elsewhere. Anyone up for that?
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