Sandwell Council facing £16m shortfall
Thursday 22nd July 2010, 11:30AM BST.
The full scale of Sandwell’s funding crisis can be revealed today with the authority facing cuts of almost £16 million this year – £12 million more than originally thought.
Sandwell’s finance boss Councillor Steve Eling told the Express & Star the authority was initially told around £4 million of cuts would need to be made in 2001/11, before a further £27 million next year.
However, cuts to housing budgets and road safety schemes have now been announced and Councillor Eling said the situation will get worse next year when “savage cuts” will have to be made.
The council is estimating around £65 million worth of cuts over the next four years and today announced it will freeze members’ allowances for the next two years.
Councillor Eling, Cabinet member for Strategic Resources, said: “The Government has cut a lot of money from area-based grants, which is £4 million, but they forgot to tell people they were cutting grants for road safety at near enough another million pounds.
“The planning delivery grant and suchlike and various other funding streams, which make up another million, and the Urban Living housing renewal will have £10 million less to spend in Sandwell this financial year, so it is closer to £16 million than £4 million.
“This is before the cuts that you are going to get in the next financial year. We are expecting the detail in October, but they have said they are looking at an average of 25 per cent which is just going to be horrendous.
“We are looking at management costs and how they are going to be reduced.
“The bottom line is people across the country are going to see pretty savage cuts to public services.”
The Express & Star revealed yesterday that Sandwell’s councillors picked up £2.1 million in allowances last year. Leader of the Labour-controlled council Darren Cooper is following Birmingham City Council’s lead in freezing payments to councillors.
Councillor Cooper said he also plans to slash the number of councillors sitting on committees, to reduce the amount of extra allowances paid out.
Most Commented
Business Awards
Book a Business Awards table
Join our celebrations of the region's best in business on Thursday March 22 - book your table now
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Express & Star and Shropshire Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases
OUR NEW APP
Get the new E&S app
Download the Express & Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
expressandstar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
You have got your budget, manage it and stop moaning.
If you are not up to the job, resign.
Oh and STOP screwing the people you are supposed to be working for.
You all seem very capable of filling in ”allowances” claim forms.
Report abuse
Instead of wasting money on the white elephant that is The Public the money could have been used more effectively. I don’t suppose the councillors will forego their expenses!
Report abuse
£450.000 spent putting plants and rocks on one traffic island, £10 and £20.000 on others.
£30,000 spent on erecting a new bandstand in Victoria Park Smethwick, by Sandwell Council.
Councillor Mahboob Hussain, wants to spend £36m on changing all the lampposts in the borough because as Councillor Mahboob Hussain said “It will save us £1.5 million a year in energy and maintenance costs”
So we spend £36 million on new lampposts to save us £1.5 million a year????????? WHY?????
A huge £30,000 Plus ‘Welcome To Sandwell’ sign is being crafted in Oldbury to be erected at Birchley traffic island.
At 36ft long and 12ft high, the steel sign will feature images of Sandwell. Canal scenes, chain making and depictions of brick makers will be flame-cut into the 14in-thick metal.
More waste!!! In May 2003, £452,380 was spent on refurbishing a children home in Tame Road, Oldbury.
2006 it was raised to the ground and the land was left empty for 4 years.
In 2009, £230.000 was spent on speed bumps in the Bearwood area, because according to the council information sent to me, over the last 5 years there had been 5 reported accidents.
Now lets move onto the salaries and perks of Sandwell Council staff!!!!!!
“Sandwell Finance chief to retire after 40 years”
Mrs Bateman is one of five current Sandwell Council employees who earn more than £100,000 a year.
Last year it was revealed more than 165 council workers earn above £50,000.
The highest earners at Sandwell Council take home more than £10.2 million a year between them.
A report on finances for 2007-08 shows that a total of 166 top earners are on salaries between £50,000 and £140,000!!!!!!!!
And More than 100 West Midlands town hall officials are paid more than Prime Minister
Sandwell chief executive Mary Fraser was paid £137,500.
Now note I haven’t once mentioned that black hole called the “Public”
£16 million in savings? No problem, just get the council leaders to do what we all do, “LIVE WITHIN OUR MEANS” AND STOP WASTING OUR MONEY ON HAREBRAINED IDEAS LIKE TRAFFIC ISLANDS OR THE “PUBLIC !!!!!!!!!!
Jim of Bearwood.
Report abuse
I have got a good idea to generate some money sell the public that should raise at least two quid. it should be mothballed as of now. councilors expenses i notice that there are one or two married couples who are both councilors and between some of them they are raking in close to fifty thousand pounds a year between them nice work if you can get it.
Report abuse
Why don’t Sandwell council start reducing top and middle managers pay instead of low paid frontline staff. That would save loads. Simple!
Report abuse
Jim – do you ever stop moaning on here?
Report abuse
no.3 Jim in Bearwood, think you should run the council, i’m sure you would do a better job at managing the budget give. agree with everything you have said.
Report abuse
I note the foreign aid as well as defense budget isn’t to be cut. Don’t talk to us about priorities.
Heh..it’s almost like this who charade is a deliberate attempt to keep Sandwell people ‘in their place’. The region just goes from one recession to another, in a supposedly rich country.
Report abuse
over and over we hear of Councils unable to account for their money. Isn’t it time that within Councils the people who know how to balance the books, work a full week, offer the services required by their Employers be employed. Instead we find political correctness has taken over these Councils with too many Managers and above, too many diversity jobs, and ‘non’ jobs with wonderful job titles and salaries, but they don’t do anything service wise for their employers.
It really is time that someone somewhere stood up and went through the job descriptions of these employees and kicked them out, no huge layoff payments (which have been made in Wolves), but just clean the people out. The public can’t keep paying higher taxes to support incompetence, and that is what it is total incomptence, by useless people incapable of doing the job they are allegedly employed to do.
Report abuse
Tony said
“Jim – do you ever stop moaning on here”?
Naaaaaaaa not now not ever, and I don’t call it moaning I call it informing people of what’s happening in their borough by people misusing their money, you don’t like my comment? Simple don’t read it.
Another comment for you Tony, I am also fed up with hearing people like Councillor Darren Cooper and MP Tom Watson trying to cause trouble for Education secretary Michael Gove, because they cant have their new schools, FACT, the last Labour Government was in office for 13 years, this present Labour Council has been in office for far longer yet overnight all the schools in the borough have suddenly deteriorated to the extent that they are unsafe, uninhabitable and unusable, why didn’t the money come from the last Labour Government? Why didn’t this Labour Council decide to do something about the substandard schools before the coalition government took over? Answer because Labour Councillors /MP’s don’t give a damn about our schoolchildren all they are interested in is coring points against the coalition it’s the oldest trick in the book but we are not all suckers.
Tony, another little bit of information for you, see the following statement and ask yourself why Tom Watson MP, didn’t ask for the money for our schoolchildren in April 2006:
“Brown unveils Africa school funds Chancellor Gordon Brown has said the UK will give $15bn (£8.5bn) in overseas aid for education in Africa and Asia”
Ask Tom Watson MP why Gordon Brown wanted to give money to countries like India that has its own nuclear submarine????
Jim of Bearwood
Report abuse
Good on ya Jim.. I agre.. your Not moaning, just saying it like it is… Keep it up mate..
Bob.
Report abuse
if you feel hard done by you want to live here nothing dont get done until west brom oldbury & smethwick as been fixed you are lucky up there at least the concilers know were you live they dont have any idea where old hill is until you dont pay your council tax ?? and as for the public WOW WAT A LOVELY WASTE OF MONEY SOME ONE AS PROBLY HAD A KNIGHTHOOD FOR BUILDING THAT GOD FORBID
Report abuse
Dont always see eye to eye with you Jim but fair play on this one. You have some good and truthful points.
Report abuse