This week the council executive of eight Lib Dem and two Tory executive councillors finalised budget recommendations for the next three years. Considerable debate has taken place and several months of hard work by council officers and coalition councillors to reach this point.
The council leader Cllr Nick Stanton has done an exemplary job in keeping all the coalition councillors informed and involved.
It’s worth reminding ourselves that 70% of council revenues are provided by central government. That the Labour government has decided to use 2004 population figures and not more recent figures. As the population is dramatically rising in London and South East, 2004 population fugures results in less money for Southwark but benefits Labour heartlands up the M1. Councils with signifcant deprivation (Southwark is the 20th most deprived council in UK) are getting real term cuts from the Labour government for the next three years as opposed to councils such as Rotherham (the 50th most deprived) which is seeing dramatic real terms increased.
Considerable savings will be made by centralising many council offices into a new office on Tooley street. God knows where we’d be if this wasn’t already in progress.
Social care is being consulted on to stop providing care for those with moderate needs. Community Warden services will have fewer wardens and manager. Meals on wheels where Southwark is the cheapest in London will see price increases. Livesey childrens museum will close. A review of all three historic town halls will take place. Some council funded events will see cuts or no more funding. A whole host of other cuts will be made.
No one likes or wants cuts. Considering the dreadful hand of cards dealt by the government I think the residents of Southwark have had the best possible result.
I have just noticed on your blog that the Livesey Museum for Children is closing. I consider myself a true Liberal Democrat. How can we let this happen! Myself and many other mothers of young children often go ‘ down to the Livesey’ to meet up watch our children play and interact with great exhibits for hours. We all believe our children are learning for imaginative play at such a young age. All it needs is a tea room to complete it. I hope as our local councillor you will help stop the closure of this museum. What do you suggest we should do, should we meet up with you to discuss how this silly suggestion can stop this closure?
You list quite a few difficult but sensible funding cuts above. One of them is not sensible. That is the closure of the Livesey Museum for Children. This place offers extraordinary experiences for schools and families, with a transformative impact on the 18,000 people a year who use it. It is unique in its approach and has an excellent national reputation. The building was given to the people in 1890 by Livesey for free access to learning and culture. It only costs £140,000 a year to run and closing it will only save part of this, i.e. the running costs that don’t include the salaries of those key staff who surely should continue to be employed by Southwark. It is not apparent that there was a detailed assessment of its cost effectiveness and the ‘value per head’ calculation was based on massively erroneous visitor figures. I would be interested to know what you think about this particular issue.
I’d be happy to meet up. The East Lib Dem councillor Richard Thomas, Jonathan Mitchell and myself hold surgeries the 2nd and 4th Thursday every Month at the East Dulwich
Community Centre. I’m told that the Livesey Children’s Museum is a resource for London, costs £150,000 to run but only has 7,000 visitors each year. If anyone has evidence
to the contrary that implies £21 per visitor. We would have to sell a lot of coffee to make a dent in that.
The Labour government has decided to use out of date population figures so that 10,000 Southwark residents ‘vanish’ and Labour government funding is insufficient to maintain
current services. This means we have to find £30,000,000 of cuts for the next 3 years. All libraries and sports centres in Southwark have more visitors than the Livesey chilrens
museum hence the decision to close this museum rather than a library or a sports centre.
I guess in an ideal world a larger museum with more resources than Southwark Council would formally ask to adopt the Livesey Museum.
As I understand it the official figures from Southwark Council press office itself are 17,800 visits.
Does this new information change your mind? I really hope so….
Hi James
Thanks for replying. I’ve just been to Peckham Library and there are families protesting outside about the closure of the museum. I have just heard that Nick Stanton has admitted the visitor figures you have quoted are wrong and it’s more then double that. When my friends and I visit the museum it’s so busy especially this half term. It would be great if you could check this information as the families I spoke to informed me that you will be voting on this on Wednesday.
Please also remember there should be room for sports centres, libraries and museums. You should visit that museum it would great to have something like this in east dulwich.
Apologies, yesterday first thing I checked my notes and you’re right. The visitor figures are 17,000 individual visitors and over a hundred school class
visits last calendar year. So something like 20,000 visitors a year. Also the savings we have to make are £35,000,000 and not £30,000,000 as I reported.
How truely sad my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I are that with such huge cuts the Labour government has made that we have to cut so many
frontline services such as the Livesey Childrens Museum and other even more socially necessary services such as home help for the elderly and
handicapped.
I’m coming up for two years of being a councillor and and I’ve been shocked at how capricious and poisonous the system central government funding of
local government is.
Could we afford to open more childrens museums. Clearly as we can’t afford to keep the one we have then we’re not in a position to buy buildings and
find the revenue to open more.
James I’m glad you have seen the light regarding the Livesey Museum. However how much do we spend on consultants for the borough. Have our priorities gone completely out the window. Our leader Mr. Stanton stated in the budget meeting the need for one central point at Tooley Street enabling officers to meet up and not take taxis. Take taxis!! we have a good transport system if I can get on a bus with my young children surely it is not that hard for a senior council officer to get on a bus and meet Nick. If you add all these costs I think i would rather have a children’s museum then endless consultants and officers too scared to get on a bus for a meeting. It would interesting if you could find out and publish the exact figures spent on consultants can that be done?
Southwark Council employ many consultants. Usually for temporary roles for projects such as selecting a prime partner for the
Elephant & Castle regeneration or for specialist roles we’ve not been able to recruit people into.
Some of the current offices we expect council officers to work productively in regularly flood. We expect Planning Officers
to work in offices that have flooded several times with sewage. Unsurprisingly that department has a high proportion of
contractors.
The move of 60 offices into the new Tooley Street council office March 2009 will make recruitment much easier. This
centralising also means we can dramatically reduce duplicate posts – fewer receptionists, facilities managers, etc.
Taxis. Tricky one as I cycle nearly everywhere – even with my two young children. I’m also 6’4″ and these days heavilly
built. When council officers finish a public meeting at 2am – and yes we too often do – I don’t expect them to catch a night bus.
The private company I work at, after 9pm colleagues are entitled to catch taxis home.
During the working day it is often cheaper for several people to travel by taxi in terms of costs, admin of expenses and the
value of employee time. Removing the need to travel is best.
but how much is spent on consultants and taxis. you still haven’t answered the question? You manage to give lots of figures and dates but you did not seem to have them handy when the decision to close the museum was being decided. Infact you were oted totally unreal out of the blue figures which is so misleading!
I have heard Southwark are only just consulting staff re: disability access for tooley street but haven’t you already got the lease for this and brought in consultants. My point is you have spent time and money trying to modernise but important services and I know they are not statutory are losing out. Maybe our council needs to take a long hard look at what really is important. I have to say I have been so disappointed by the behaviour of Southwark – under 4 weeks and you close such an important museum for children without any consultation of its users or enabling the museum to find alternative ways to support its works. Southwark has played the museum as a political football with the whole central government cuts argument what a poor way to carry out your duty of care to us the people who pay our council tax.
This will be my final email because I cannot bear to hear any more excuses. I have never been that political and have always voted for your party in the past but I cannot bear to hear the continuous spin my local councillors give out.
I’m surprised that you haven’t answered Cath’s question. Are you aware of the figures? If not, why not? If you are, why won’t you publish them?
I suppose that the only way to go would be via a Freedom of Information request?
Hi Natalie, Cath,
I don’t have the figures to hand of how much is spent on taxis and consultants.
I believe these figures were quoted at full council that set the budget. They’ll be in the minutes of the meeting. This will
be on the Southwark Council website.
Should we have fewer consultants and contractors. Well yes and no. For example we find it very hard to recruit street
cleaners. Many of these roles are filled by temps i.e. contractors. Having a national pay scale and pay negotiations does
complicate paying enough to fill these roles with permanent staff. Should we leave posts unfilled until we find permanent
staff and the streets litter filled – no.