Council agrees budget proposals

Manchester City Council has agreed its budget for the coming year.

The budget sets out how the Council will make £109 million of savings over the next financial year, rising to £170m in 2012/13.

Although the Council anticipated a reduction in central funding and had planned to make substantial savings, after the Government's financial settlement it became clear that £60 million more savings would have to be found next year.

Overall the savings which need to be made over the next two years represent 25% of the Council's budget.

While the council has already made substantial efficiency savings over the last two years - and was planning to make £96m savings between 2010 and 2013 - the scale and speed of savings required means they can no longer be achieved through efficiencies alone.

The proposals - which include a Council Tax freeze for the second year running - were agreed at a meeting of the full Council today.

Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, said: "This budget has been incredibly difficult to put together. Our priority has to be to protect the most vulnerable of Manchester residents, while at the same time promoting economic growth to stimulate investment in the city.

"The scale of the cuts makes it impossible to put together a balanced budget - which we are legally obliged to do - without it having an impact on frontline services. We have done our best to minimise that impact.

"We have also listened to the concerns that Manchester people have raised with us. When we published our proposals, we asked people to give us feedback. That consultation process resulted in more than 400 responses from the public. We've taken on board their concerns.

"For example, we have listened to the impressive campaign to save Levenshulme baths. The pool was earmarked for closure, but the strength of feeling from local people meant we had to look again at that plan. We are now drawing up proposals for a new pool, with a view to keeping the existing pool open until then.

"We have also restated our commitment to Sure Start. There has been a lot of suggestion that we will close or privatise Sure Start centres. This is not our intention. We will no longer directly provide Sure Start provision, but seek to transfer that provision to other providers including schools or the voluntary sector. We already do this very successfully at four excellent Sure Start centres across the city.

"We have also frozen Council Tax for the second year running, which is some good news for Manchester people. I'm pleased to say that we've kept our Council Tax increases below inflation for a decade now, and now have one of the lowest in Greater Manchester.

"But the scale of the difficulties we face should not be underestimated. For example, we have seen an £8m cut in the Early Intervention Grant and a £12.6m cut - or 35% - in our Supporting People Grant, which helps us support the most vulnerable in the city stay in their homes.

"The coming years will be incredibly difficult for Mancunians but your Council will be doing all it can to support Manchester people with the limited resources available to us."

The proposals can be read in detail at http://www.manchester.gov.uk/meetings/meeting/1490/council