A cabinet member to brief on the budget consultation process.
Minutes:
Cllr Richard Livingstone, cabinet member for Finance and resources introduced the second stage of the council’s budget consultation.
He explained that following the government’s Comprehensive Spending Review, the council was likely to have to save over £80m over the next four years, most of which might be in the first year.
Cllr Livingstone invited people to feed into the consultation process: each resident had been given a bundle of ‘colour coded cheques’ with a value of £1 million, green cheques represented investment and reds for savings. Residents and councillors were asked to drop them into the boxes relating to each service area and make comments on the cheques and the reasons for their choices.
Feedback on the budget exercise
The chair announced that there were more green cheques which was an indication that most felt service areas should be retained as much as possible. Most especially Adult Social Care and Children’s services. In addition more money should be provided for 11 – 19 year olds by way of education, training and youth facilities.
Those areas which received the red cheques were CCTV and Corporate Services.
It was noted that a cabinet member would attend a future community council meeting to feed back the results of this consultation, which would also be available online.
People were also encouraged to go on the Southwark website:
http://www.southwark.gov.uk to submit their comments.