Area Councils abolished

The current system of Area Councils has been scrapped in order to save money. Cllr Miles Parkinson, Leader of HBC, has issued a statement.

He said, "Members will be aware of the increasing pressures on the Council’s revenue and capital budgets. For example, our capital programme for the current year is only a quarter of what it was four years ago and we now receive no government grant for general capital expenditure. We only have £2.5 million of capital resources left to cover the next three years and, of that, £1.5 million is already committed to finance existing commitments.

Our revenue budget is also declining year on year and I anticipate that further savings will be required in 2015-16.

As leader of the Council I want to ensure that we make the best use of the money we have for the benefit of the Borough as a whole and we therefore have to take an increasingly strategic approach

to resource allocation.The Controlling Group remains committed to protecting frontline services and this means that difficult decisions sometimes have to be taken elsewhere.

With this in mind, I have concluded that the Council’s current area working arrangements must be brought to an end. The cuts year on year have left the remaining area council’s managing ever decreasing budgets and rendered them unviable looking ahead.

As a cost saving measure I am therefore proposing that we do not establish any area councils for the coming financial year. I also propose that no further expenditure is permitted from the area council budgets with immediate effect, although existing contractual commitments will be honoured.

At the same time, I will tomorrow be asking the Chief Executive to bring forward proposals to streamline the Council’s member services and civic services functions. As part of this review I will ask officers to consider whether technology could be better used to support members, provide more accessible information to the public and generate efficiency savings. I will also request that no action is taken to fill staff vacancies in these areas during the review process.

I propose that a detailed report will be brought to Cabinet in due course.

I also want to stress the importance of maintaining strong and vibrant local communities and I encourage members to bring forward proposals and new ideas for the regeneration and improvement of our various townships and neighbourhoods."