Teen beauty spot drinkers are ramblers, not rebels
- Dave Burrows
Shropshire children and OAP services to be hit in £9m budget cuts
Wednesday 8th September 2010, 11:10AM BST.
Services for children and the elderly in Shropshire will be hit next year in a new £9 million raft of budget cuts revealed for the county today.
The latest round of proposed savings have been identified in a draft report which will be presented to Shropshire Council’s cabinet next week.
Further options for cutting spending will come forward later in the year as Shirehall leaders look to find savings of more than £15 million in the 2011/12 financial year.
Overall the council is aiming to save nearly £60 million over three years.
The latest proposals, if agreed by cabinet, will lead to £854,000 cuts from its children and young people’s services directorate.
But council chiefs still maintain this figure can be achieved with only minimal implications to frontline services.
Within community services, the authority is looking to save £300,000 by reducing the number of people placed in residential care.
A further £200,000 can be saved through “robust” negotiations with care home owners over costs.
Under these latest proposed cuts, £421,000 is expected to be saved on contracts with the voluntary and community sector during the re-tendering process.
Council Leader, Keith Barrow, said: “We understand that some of the proposals won’t be popular, but we cannot hide from the fact that we need to save £60 million over the next three years.
“We have to make substantial changes to the way we work, and by doing things like making more imaginative use of our buildings, reducing administration overheads, looking at opening times and how much we charge for services, we hope to be able to protect essential frontline services.”
Sponsored Links
Most Commented
- Leader: Hospital parking suggestion simply nonsense
- Leader: Crimewave goes up with the mercury
- MP Owen Paterson opposed to same-sex marriages
- Teen beauty spot drinkers are ramblers, not rebels
- Hospital 18-week waiting list down to 800
- Parking zones fear for Shropshire hospital workers
- Protesters: We await problems at Shropshire hospitals
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
LIVE traffic updates
Road, rail and airport - latest
Our new, live traffic and travel updates service - check before you set out.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
Once again it’s our old folk and children that must suffer.
How about getting rid of all those costly politically-correct non jobs and schemes – e.g social inclusion officers, ‘diversity’ awareness courses, etc.
Report abuse
Cuts of £9 million can’t be found as you suggest. Children and old people will be hurt because of the ideology of this ConDem government and its savaging of public services.
Report abuse
I voted Libdems on the back of their promises towards children and schools.. Never again.
Report abuse
Oh how awful! The soon as there is any talk of financial cutbacks, out come the bleedin’ heart liberals, blathering on about the suffering which wil be inflicted on our children and the elderly.
I fully agree that non essential “politically correct” jobs ought to go (assuming that they can be identified and correctly targetted). However, for years individuals and institutions (including local authorities) in this country and in this county have been living beyond their means. Now it is payback time. There is a cost to everything be it the provision for services for the elderly or for children. It all has to be paid for – as do mortgages and household bills.
As far as the elderly are concerned there are plenty of them who do NOT need handouts such as free bus passes – which could and should be stopped. Many are much better off than future generations of the elderly will be.
And I doubt that any of our children will end up living by the side of the roads, as has happened to those displaced as a result of the floods in Pakistan.
And if the county council really needs to save money, then start targetting the needless and ridiculous financial excesses such as having FOUR deputy heads in one south Shropshire secondary school, let alone in the same school having a senior member of staff “retire” to go and teach part time in a private school and then come back to teach part time in the same state school from which that individual retired.
Report abuse
I think there is little doubt that the Education Department is seriously bloated, with some ludicrous senior jobs in schools which barely involve any actual teaching (and these jobs have continued to be advertised over the past several months even though the council knew the spending squeeze was coming!
And how many ‘business managers’ do schools need?
Fair enough, they’re going to try and protect spending in areas like education but facts need to be faced, education is one of the most bloated areas of spending, with hundreds of non essential hangers-on (many of who are in fairly senior posts). Time for pruning.
Report abuse