Haringey budget: Parking fines up, grants and jobs cut

Parking fines will go up and a popular fund for community projects will be cut as part of a raft of further budget cuts announced by Haringey Council last week.

A budget gap of £21million still had to be closed over the next three years as Haringey struggles to cut a total of £84million from its annual budget from now to 2015.

Unveiled at a cabinet meeting by finance chief Cllr Joe Goldberg, the package will see more council jobs cut and services cut back.

Drivers parking illegally will be hit with a higher fines from next April, earning the council an estimated extra £430,000 per year.

The popular Making The Difference fund, which allowed residents to bid for small grants for projects to improve their neighbourhood, will also be scrapped after this year, saving £175,000 annually.

Cllr Goldberg said: “It was an expensive grants scheme to administer and monitor. I think there are other ways we can better serve our local communities.”

Elsewhere, the council will suspend the recruitment of trainee social workers for vulnerable children next year to save £100,000, and anticipate the number of children in care will fall, allowing them to contract out residential care home provision and cut back on associated staff, saving £1.5million by 2015.

Road maintenance will also be reduced with £100,000 taken out of the pothole repair budget.

The council’s communications budget will be cut by £235,000, primarily affecting printed promotion of cultural events; council magazine Haringey People will be unaffected, already reduced to six issues per year.

Back-room cuts include an expected saving of £725,000 from a review of IT contracts.

The council has already shed around 800 staff and Cllr Goldberg predicted more job losses, estimating: “We will break through the 1,000 mark.”

He criticised the deep government budget cuts and the “seismic effect” they will have on the borough.

The proposals were laid out for the first time last week and will go through several stages of consultation before the final budget is approved next February.

 

 

Story form Hornsey Journal