Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Announcing a new survey on residents spenidng priorities, Council Leader Claire Kober had the following to say:

"Our borough is bracing itself for the deepest cuts in our history. When the full extent of the government’s cost-cutting measures is revealed in this month’s Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), we expect to be forced to remove anywhere between £60m and £80m from our budget. This represents between £650 and £870 from every household in the borough.

"This is in addition to the £17m the government has removed in grant funding since May, which was due to pay for, among other things, much needed primary school places, and the creation of playbuilder sites across the borough. "All this makes this year's budget among the most important in Haringey's history. We cannot underestimate the scale of the challenge we face together as a borough to balance our budget, protect the quality of services, provide support to the vulnerable and young families in need, and continue to progress the quality of life for all.
"We remain committed to our priorities – including creating a brighter future for families, a cleaner, greener borough, and better homes and neighbourhoods – and we are determined, where possible, to build on the good work which has already been done.

"Through the Shaping Our Future survey, we hope to create a clearer picture of which services and activities are most important to you, where you think spending cuts may or may not be acceptable, and what changes to services you would be comfortable with so that together we can put our borough on a stable footing, on which we can build a more prosperous and fairer borough.

"I hope you will respond to our Shaping Our Future survey. While we oppose the level and speed of cuts, we know that we have to operate within the fiscal constraints dictated by the government of the day. With your help we hope to make them as fair as possible and protect the services which you believe are most important to you and your community."

To complete the survey, click here.



Tags for Forum Posts: cuts, public spending cuts

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My changes... if I was Claire Kober etc...

2011 2010 description
2027 2027 Schools and children's centres
370 870 Children's safeguarding
763 763 Support for the elderly and for people with disabilities
30 43 Tackling crime and anti-social behaviour
0 2 Reducing carbon emissions
107 107 Housing and homelessness
203 203 Libraries,culture, sports and leisure
193 393 Environmental services (such as highways, rubbish and recycling collection, street cleaning and enforcement)
60 60 Regeneration and helping local people access jobs and training
32 32 Support for community organisations
3785 4500 total

The website is rubbish (just box ticking - yes we did a website that allowed resident participation), C-. No automatic re-calculation and it gets the figures and entire raison d'etre wrong on the very first page (which is, the current budget is £4500 per household, how would you slash it by between £650 and £850?). No mention. I'm not being picky, someone was paid for this, i.e. a professional.

Anything that employs a local person really needs to stay but we must start paying to pollute (yes our weekly rubbish collection is our own personal pollution). And I shudder to think that Haringey has been cowed into spending all that money trying to stop the next baby P.
I had a look at this survey online yesterday. Yeah, I have to say I agree with John McMullan that it isn't very well-designed. I picked up a paper copy at the Children's Centre today so am hoping that will be a bit easier to do
I'm sure LBH has done a consultation right, sometime, somewhere. It's just that I can't remember it and this latest effort certainly isn't one of them. Generally speaking, LBH cannot do consultations right. They either do too much or too little, are opaque, transparently tendentious or are 95% "diversity monitoring."

As JM says, the website is rubbish. On my OS & browser, the figures in a column don't line up properly, which suggests it wasn't tested properly. That's a minor technical issue they should have got right.

I see we are invited to apportion expenditure down to an accuracy of less than 0.1% (i.e. down to single pounds out of £4,500 (per household). This is absurd and the average member of the public is not equipped to quantify these things, let alone get down to this level of detail.

Is this not the same survey that was promoted a few weeks ago? Where most of the survey comprised a gathering of data about the respondent? (that kind of data gathering is another example of a waste of time and money).

In the list of services provided by the council, there are seem to be at least some items that don't appear on the list and yet which we know do cost taxpayer money. For example, where is the publicity budget, that includes Haringey People magazine? Has anything else been left out and why?

This survey is an example of a waste of money at Haringey Council. Along with much unfair and unjustified redundancies there may be some who should have gone a while ago.

(For what its worth, I suggest that the libraries budget be part of the education budget, where it might enjoy some protection; and please delete the propaganda department)
"we expect to be forced to remove anywhere between £60m and £80m from our budget. This represents between £650 and £870 from every household in the borough. "

...er, I guess it's too much to expect that if the Council is cutting £60-80m from their budget then we can expect to have to pay £60-80m less tax..?
Not enough detail. For example, " Libraries, culture, sports and leisure " Suppose I want to maintain libraries as is, but see no need to subsidise sports and leisure ? I don't want an across-the-board percentage cut in this overall budget but perhaps only on some items.

By far the biggest line is "Support for the elderly and people with disabilities " We need much more detail here. Apart from my bus pass (which is at least part funded by Central Government ), I'm not aware of receiving any support from the Council.

But they're started cutting services already. Youth Centres are closing. Voluntary redundancies have been requested by the council within other services (which haven't been reported in the media yet) so I can assure you this survey is a sham

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