Brighton: £9m spending cuts planned

Town hall bosses are looking at £9 million of cuts to services next year to keep council tax below the Government cap of 5% - reports The Argus.

Although the budget has yet to be released, The Argus understands there is a funding gap between what Brighton and Hove City Council needs to spend to maintain services and its Government grant.

It is about 5% of the total budget of £200 million.

In November, it emerged the council would have to find £20 million in savings in the next three years to keep council tax below 4.9%.

This is on top of £3 million of cuts to street cleaning and social services to balance the overspend so far this financial year.

It now appears the council needs to find £9 million in cuts to balance the books next year.

More than 111 posts are expected to be axed, including 24 positions in social services and others from management and administrative roles.

A maximum of 46 redundancies were planned but Unison said the number was falling due to a number of departures and people being moved to different departments.

Adult social services will see savings of £1.7 million, including cuts to agency staff. Schemes such as the Palmeira Project, which looked after disabled children, will now be moved to an alternative service at The Drove in Portslade.

Green councillor Simon Williams said: "We are now seeing the effects of the Government's poor grant settlement to Brighton and Hove City Council biting into services for some of the most vulnerable people in the community.

"While the council has tried to minimise the impact on service-users, it's an inescapable fact that, with job cuts totalling two per cent of the wage budget, services for some of the most vulnerable in our community will suffer."

Leader of the council Simon Burgess said "We are always having to run to keep still, that is why council tax goes up.

"Where we make savings other things start costing more.

"The costs of looking after the elderly, young people and the environment, for instance, is always increasing and we have to carry on caring for people even while Government isn't meeting the increasing costs."

Councillor Paul Elgood said: "We are now concerned cuts are going to be made to frontline services and we are going to lose some of our best staff."

Look on bright side says hospital boss

The head of a hospital trust battling to get its finances under control has urged staff to look on the bright side following a series of cuts - reports The Argus.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust has been working to save £15 million and this has led to workers being made redundant and beds being closed.

The trust also has one of the highest MRSA rates in the country.

A consistently high number of bed-blocking patients have to stay in hospital longer than necessary until other organisations such as social services can sort out a care home place for them or provide proper support in their own home.

In a New Year message to staff, chief executive Peter Coles said improvements had been made but there was still a lot of work to be done and the next few months would be a challenge.

The message follows the news earlier this month that hundreds of hospital workers could strike after a union representative from GMB complained he was "frog marched" out of the building when he was made redundant.

Mark Thomas was escorted from the Royal Sussex by security guards after being called into a meeting and told he was losing his job as part of 500 cuts in posts at the trust. The trust plans to cut 40 jobs from its facilities department, where Mr Thomas worked, over the next month.

GMB branch secretary Mark Turner said: "Of course it has been tough but it has mainly been tough for those at the lower levels who are having to pay for the incompetence of management that allowed the finances to get into the state they did.

"Morale is at rock bottom at the moment and the next few months are going to be even harder."

Brighton: City's £20m cuts shock

Town hall chiefs are being forced to consider more than £20 million of cuts to services to avoid council tax rises of up to 30 per cent over the next four years - reports The Argus.

Brighton and Hove City Council is already considering slashing the budgets for street cleaning and social services after revealing it needed to claw back £3 million of debt accrued so far this financial year.

But the authority is predicting a freeze in Government funding - meaning huge pressures on every department's budget.

The news led campaigners last night to call for a root-and-branch review of local government funding.

To avoid slashing services, council tax would have to increase by 4.9% in April next year, 8%the year after, then 7% in 2009/10 and 6% in 2010/11.

This would result in the average Band D household paying an extra £400 a year by April 2010, or £1,661 in total.

But ministers limit council tax increases to 5% and a council spokesman said it did not plan to go beyond the cap - meaning savings of more than £20 million will be needed.

Before the end of the financial year, the council is set to close a home for five children with autism, stop the night-time street cleaning service and cut just under £1 million from adult social services, including scores of council employees not being replaced when they leave.

Council leader Simon Burgess also warned of job losses.

Green councillor Keith Taylor said he would be pushing for charities and not-for-profit organisations to take on more of the council's work.

He said: "We cannot carry on delivering the same for less. It is impossible to carry on making cuts."