WILL the lights …. the street lights that is … ever go out as it dawns on the city’s rulers we are skint, broke, penniless!
Mayor Anderson says a quarter of
the council’s £550m budget goes
on things it doesn’t really need to provide
In the starkest hint yet about the dark days that lie ahead Major Joe Anderson has, like Old Mother Hubbard, pointed to the cupboard in the City Treasury, and it’s bare.
Within two years there will only be enough cash in the coffers to fund essential tasks such as social services.
At risk is every service the council has no legal obligation to run. This includes cultural events, regeneration work and leisure centres.
Mayor Anderson says a quarter of the council’s £550m budget goes on things the council doesn’t really need to provide, even though in most cases they may be important to city life.
The Mayor has summoned the leaders of the Liberal Democrats, Liberal Party and Greens, as well as the city’s five MPs, to a special summit of the Cabinet this Friday, October 4. Mayor Anderson wants them to hear first hand the plight facing Liverpool.
Latest estimates show the council has to save £156m over the next three years. That is on top of the £173m already cut in the past three years - a total of £329m in six years.
The latest financial position shows the city council will have to save £45m in 2014/15, £63m in 2015/16 and £48m in 2016/17.
To rub salt into the wounds, this is an increase of £16m on previous estimates, due to changes in funding arrangements recently announced by the Government.
Mayor Anderson said: “We have had to make significant cuts to services and to the number of people we employ. But there is far worse to come and people need to understand that over the next few years we are going to be stopping doing things that we currently take for granted. If we do not, we will go bankrupt.
“Eighty pence in every pound of our income comes from Central Government, and because they have taken almost half of that funding away from us, we are going to have to make some very difficult and tough choices.”
Over the next few months, the Mayor will discuss, with residents and council partners, what they value the most, and what services they are prepared to see significantly reduced or withdrawn altogether.
The Mayor warned: “Although it will be painful, we have no alternative.”
Is it a case of some financial chickens coming home to roost in Liverpool?
The city for many years has relied on one of the country’s highest levels of support grants.
In fairness to the city, this reflected Liverpool’s high levels of social deprivation and poverty.
Around 80pc of the budget came from Westminster, compared to hardly any Government money to some better off areas.
It meant when the rug was finally pulled, the shockwaves were massive. Liverpool was destined to be the worst affected area.
More than a decade ago some people were urging Liverpool to become far less reliant on Government money and handouts from London or Brussels. Mayor Anderson has landed the job of trying to sort out the mess.
