Residents Invited To Have Their Say On How To Save Approximately £30m

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Residents are to be asked what they would like Stoke-on-Trent City Council to prioritise its spending on for the next financial year, on the back of stiff government cuts.

The authority, which has a budget of £209 million, needs to save approximately £30 million next year ““ a 14 per cent reduction.

A six-week “ËœLet’s Talk’ public consultation will begin on Monday, and residents’ responses will help with tough decisions on where government cuts need to be made.

The consultation, which will run between 12 July ““ 20 August, will include:

* Face-to-face surveys carried out in local centres, shopping centres, markets, libraries, museums and bus stations
* An on-line survey via stoke.gov.uk/letstalk
* Billboard advertising to inform people about the consultation
* A dedicated phone line ““ 01782 235104 ““ where people can give their views in person

The council is responsible for hundreds of services in the city, from bin collections to schools. Some of the services are statutory, which means the council has to carry them out by law ““ these include looking after children in care and vulnerable adults, to highway maintenance and planning regulations. The authority also provides many discretionary services which the council believes it is right to offer residents ““ these include libraries, swimming pools, museums and allotments.

The survey questions ask people to say what is important to them from a list that includes:

* Encouraging more jobs and businesses
* Reducing anti-social behaviour and fear of crime
* Looking after the environment and tackling climate change
* Improving health and well-being
* Repairing and maintaining roads and pavements
* Keeping streets clean
* Improving educational achievement
* Supporting and protecting vulnerable adults and children
* Increasing recycling
* Providing sport and leisure facilities
* Providing decent and affordable housing

The results of the consultation will be reported to the council’s cabinet and the overview and scrutiny committees that help to put the budget together.

Councillor Kieran Clarke, cabinet member for finance, performance and governance, said:

“We face very tough economic times, and the amount of money the government is asking us to save means we have to make very difficult decisions on where we prioritise our spending.

“Residents views are always important to us, but are even more so given the cuts that need to be made. Saving £30 million is a very hard task and will simply mean that we will not be able to deliver some of the services that we have been doing.

“The government’s emergency budget made it clear that we will not be allowed to raise council tax next year to help pay for services, so it is crucial to know what services are important to residents to help identify where the savings must be made.

“I urge as many residents as possible to respond to the consultation. By getting a good range of views from across the city, we will be able to take their views into account when setting the budget.”

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About Tony Walley

I was Abbey Hulton born and bred, now live in Meir Hay. I'm married to Nita, we have 2 kids Tom 19 & Amy 17. I'm the Managing Director of a local aluminium stockist. I'm also a radio presenter and presented sport on radio for a number of years, more recently for Focal Radio. It was on Focal that I got the chance to present a programme of my favourite music genre which is Soul & Smooth Jazz. The programme was really popular and attracted overseas listeners online. Look out for our new venture www.6towns.co.uk - Community Radio for the good folk of the 6 Towns! I was the original creator of the blog Pits'n'Pots which gained some credibility when Mike Rawlins joined the site and has now blossomed into this site. I love sport particularly Golf & Tennis. I packed up playing football some years ago when I started picking up lot's of fines for bookings from late tackles! I play golf at Leek Golf Club and Tennis at Draycott Sports Centre.

Have Your Say

  • Potteye

    On first glance this seems like a noble attempt to include the public in a very difficult exercise. Yet on closer inspection this is little more than a box ticking con, a waste of public money, and worst of all, of little value to councillors when it comes to swinging the axe on public services.

    Why do I say this?

    Consultation is about quality not quantity. This proposed consultation is fundamentally flawed as it will not identify residents honest views on the cuts that people are willing to accept for the benefit of the services people really want protecting.

    The consultation proposes (once again!) to ask “What are your priorities?”, and the answers coming back will likely be a list, based on their experiences ““ lets say street cleaning, pot holes, etc. At the end this is what will be presented to councillors.

    I have seen it done year after year. Officers will justify their proposals to close this, that and the other based on residents top ten priorities. (Remember Dimensions).

    Surely what councillors want to know is what services people are prepared to sacrifice.

    I want to know from residents, for example, “If your priority is potholes, would you want to see libraries closed so that we have no potholes, or are you prepared to put up with the potholes for a bit longer if we spend the money on say libraries instead?”

    This is the kind of data I want so that when it comes to budget time, I have some idea what is really important to people. What would be even better is to know at a neighbourhood level. People in Longton may want their council tax spent on playgrounds, while Tunstall wants to keep its swimming pool.

    I am concerned that this will be a typical consultation, simplistic and blunt, with little or no value to the budget process.

    Cutting spending will be hard enough, but if we get this consultation wrong, I can see us blinded into thinking we have residents support, yet having demonstrations and campaigns galore ““ all because we asked the wrong questions.

    http://www.potteye.blogspot.com

  • Adam Colclough

    The council has asked for advice from the public on how to go about saving £30million from its budget, meaning choose what you want to see cut because cuts to services are inevitable.

    Rather than looking at the usual options such as not cutting the grass or spending less on maintaining the roads, resulting in even more damage being done to the city’s image, perhaps we should consider swinging the axe in another direction.

    The removal of the regiment of “Ëœconsultants’ on the city’s payroll seems to be an “Ëœeasy hit’, as does scrapping the wasteful and remote Transition Board, neither would be much missed and their removal would streamline the way the council delivers services without damaging too deeply the services in question.

    On its own this will not cure the city’s financial problems, but it would at least demonstrate that the council hierarchy are sharing some of the “Ëœpain’ that will inevitably be felt by local communities. After all we are “Ëœall in this together’, aren’t we?

  • mikefire

    If the consultants advice is being taken, then from the results, or lack of, the consultants are a waste of money.If the advice is not being taken then, as is very likely, we need to get rid or “the worthies’ who hired the consultants.
    We supposedly have, teams of experts, with good salaries, advising the “worthies ‘and hopefully curbing their ignorant excesses. It appears however that this is not happening, and our team are not competent ,and/or suitable for this modern age,Is this why then that we are dependent on large quantities of expensive consultants?

  • MarkEllam

    I just completed the survey and I don’t think the results of completing it are going to tell the council anything it doesn’t already know.

    Maybe a survey that showed me more detail on how the money was spent and where and then ask me to prioritise would have been better.

    The reduction of one expense could inevitable lead to an increase in cost of another or two failed services instead of one. eg close council owned swimming pool would mean some people wouldn’t swim (because they cant afford the private alternatives). Swimming may be their only appropriate or enjoyable form of exercise therefore they stop exercising and the health impacts of such then become another issue impacting another council service.

    If the council really wants useful input from the residents of stoke-on-Trent I think they need to open their books and give pro’s and cons of keeping / reducing / losing each line of expenditure. Make the council officers justify to the public why they need their budgets.

    I think then you might get some useful input ?

    they must know that the answer to most of the questions in this survey is always going to “important” in the eyes of most people ?

  • Alan Gerrard

    I agree, you need a lot more info on the pros and cons for this to be useful. I think though, full engagement should be over HOW strategies are executed not chosen; it is the role of our elected reps to make those decisions.

    Of course, if we hadn’t have spent £18m over the last 2 years on consultants then we’d only be looking to cut 2/5 of that amount. PKB talks about political leadership; with strong political leadership perhaps we wouldn’t have hired the consultants in the first place, but where is it?

    Unfortunately, our politicians are in no position to criticise as little constructive is coming from them.

  • Designation WWCW

    Seems like a bit of a waste of time – one wonders how much this latest “consultation” has/will cost to set up and analyse before they throw the results in the bin and carry on regardless..
    It’d probably be a better idea to ask the Resident’s associations to ask their members etc what they would or would not mind doing without.
    Ah but I was recently informed ( by the local RA)that Stoke on Trent Councillors don’t usually attend Residents meetings as they are no longer paid for doing so.

  • George K Harvey

    Is there any point in having our say? i remember some people arguing that the “enhanced” recycling scheme was being badly implemented but to no avail. The Council quoted savings of a £1million for that but then it’s been found that this figure didn’t include costs of disposal or indeed costs of buying blue bins at £1.6million. It also didn’t include costs for redeveloping their site at Federation Road or sub-contractor costs for green/food waste. People who did raise these questions with officers and a particular member were ignored.

    So what is the point of speaking out and having your say? Does it make you feel better? Does it salve your conscience? Does it make you feel less useless or less ignored? Let’s hope so becasue it certainly achieves bugger all in the way of changed policy or improved implementation.

  • Lotto

    Whist I can agree with your sentiment Adam re the way in which money can be saved I think that your “Ëœbrush’ is a bit too broad. True a vast amount of money has been wasted on the hiring of consultants “¦ what is unforgivable is that none of our highly paid officers has been called upon to explain why this action was necessary bearing in mind that our new Chief Executive constantly tells us that the City Council has too many senior managers !.

    We are where we are, and turkeys don’t vote for Christmas ..therefore I can see no other way for our new Chief to reduce management costs and increase efficiency within the City Council without using consultants. Unlike his forebears this man does seem prepared to commit himself to producing the results “¦ we need the patience to wait and see.

    And so to the Transition Board. I suspect the truth is that they don’t actually cost the City that much in monetary terms, but neither do they do anything!. Bearing in mind that this quango was set up in 2008 to protect and propagate good governance in the City it has achieved very little”¦.

    Last press statement “¦18th September 2009
    Last meeting for which details are available “¦29th March 2010

    “ËœOur’ Transition Board has made no comment re the Britannia Stadium debacle ..perhaps because Mike Tappin (portfolio holder for finances and resources on Mr Meredith’s (the elected mayor) advisory board at the time of the Britannia Stadium “Ëœgoings on’ is now a trusty member of this Board, an unnecessary encumbrance on the future development of the City? “¦ Scrap him and it by all means.

  • Warren Lloyd

    Stop all this conceltation, as it costs money and do your job. Cut back on the back office girls and boys doing not a lot for rather lange payments each month. Stop all new bathroom, new kitchens and stuff like that going into council homes, focasing more on needed repairs. More thought going into how money is spent.
    I’ll give you an sampel of this, one of my mates live in Meir in the area where them gates have been put to stop scum and low life useing the passageways. Problem is right by the gate is a low wall, the scum and low life just jump over that. What a sham’

  • Designation WWCW

    Warren – I agree with that one, we were offered a new kitchen and bathroom – nowt wrong with the ones we have so I told them no thank you.
    The new motto for Stoke Council should be ” If it ain’t broke – don’t fix it”
    Several years ago we got new door locks and window locks. Super safe 5 lever jobs instead of the old Yale cylinders – workmen up and down the street fitting them everywhere. It was rather shocking a couple of months later when everyone got new hardwood doors ( complete with new 5 lever locks).
    There’s also been a totally unnecessary campaign of ripping out established hedges and replacing them with metal fencing ( I refused that one as well )anyone struggling to cut their hedge is welcome to invite me ’round !

  • Warren Lloyd

    What a bloody disgrace, ripping out hedges and sticking in metal fencing, whos soft ass idear was thet. Some bugger on a cut from the metal fencing makeing firm me thinks, makes the area looks like a bloody prison camp you can bet. I’d realy like to know who the hell makes these sort of half baked jobs up. Some bugger needs sacking about that. By the way, the wifes up for clipping anyones hedge.

  • Andi

    Lets have an un-shopping list c/w prices, IE:- section manager £100k x 5 = half million saving !

  • Abi Brown

    Would be interested to know roughly what area of the City you live in, Designation WWCW.

    If I’m invited, I attend everything I possibly can in both my ward and the Meir/Longton neighbourhood area, plus events in the wider City.

    I’m a bit horrified that some cllrs consider they should be paid to attend RA meetings… surely it’s not about the money, but doing the best for your residents and area?

  • Designation WWCW

    I thought so too ( and my friend – a Cllr from another area was also not impressed)
    The area is Fegg Hayes

  • George K Harvey

    I was absolutely amazed to read this today;

    “Union ‘outraged’ at primary school head’s £231,400 salary”
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jul/13/headteacher-salary-more-than-prime-minister

    I had no idea that payscales for teachers went so high. What is Stoke paying? Does anyone know? Surely we’re not that stupid as to pay this level are we?

    I’ve got family who are teachers, ordinary teachers doing their bit and putting in planty of extra hours to make up for their holidays and I know for a fact that the ordinary teacher doesn’t earn a fortune, so how can such masive paypackets for heads be justified?

  • Designation WWCW

    They can’t be justified – it’s obscene.

  • Ian Norris

    [quote=George K Harvey]Is there any point in having our say? [/quote]

    I don’t see much point unless we start getting feedback from Cabinet members and or your local councillors, but as it been offered otherwise they can use did you take part as some lame excuse.

    As for recycling there are now a few residents now asking questions, will officers and councillors now start taking part in the debate?

  • Leaf Trombone

    How about sacking the councillors we elected to do this work for us as once they get difficult decision they ask us anyway?

  • Warren Lloyd

    Leaf Trombone……becouse its not the councillors who are asking, its the prats in the back office who are not doing there jobs and forceing there hand to ask us, its public conceltaion anyway, wether them fools in the office take any notice of it. I very much think not.
    I’v said it before, if I ever became a councillor, they would have to employ a chippy down in the civic center full time, to hang to doors back on there hinges, coz I’d be kicking them off, and draging people out to awnser a few questions.