Lewisham
Future Programme - Here is a summary of some of the proposals:
“The Council is now in the fourth
year of an eight year long period of resource reduction. Over the period 2010
to 2014 the Council made savings of over £100m. ... This level of continual
reduction means that proposals need to be increasingly transformational and are
becoming increasingly difficult to identify and implement”.
“Staff numbers (Headcount) have
reduced from 3,997 to 2,745 (-31%) in that time. The scale of this change is
important context – a far more radical and transformative approach is now
required”.
“By 2018 it is likely that, as an
organisation, we will be one-third smaller than we are now. We now employ less
than 3,000 staff and the numbers are bound to fall further”.
“For several months now we have
known that we need to make £95m of budget savings from 2014/15 to 2017/18. This
year (2014/15) we made £10m of reductions that will flow into next year. This
reduces the total we need to find to some £85m. The profile of the savings we
need to make requires us to find in the region of £40m savings for 2015/16 and
£45m over the next two years”
“But the Government then chose, when
allocating its spending reductions as part of the national public austerity
programme, to allocate the deepest cuts to its financing of local
government ... [and] to focus the budget
cuts disproportionally to those Councils with the highest spend - which, of
course, also have the highest levels of need ... Lewisham is the 16th most
deprived local authority area in England with one of the lowest business bases
- it is bound to be effected greatly by these financing changes”
Savings required 2015/16 2016/17 2017/18
Total
£m 39 26 20 85
The
report presents £40.6m of new proposals. These include:
Section A - Social care & health – proposed
cuts of £10.3 million including:
A1: Cut of £2.7M – Care Packages - cutting the costs of community care
packages for the roughly 3,400 adults receiving them .. a range of cuts to the packages provided including “the Meals
on Wheels contract will not be renewed and individuals in receipt of this service will be
offered alternative options for the provision of a meal. For example, arranging
for them to access supermarket home delivery services”
A2: Cut of £1.5M - Reduction in cost of Learning Disability provision – “It is a risk that out of
borough providers will evict our clients, or encourage families to take legal
action against the authority” ... “This is a significant savings target
relating mainly to direct service provision. It will potentially result in, or
be perceived to result in, a reduction in service quality and client and family
choice, both of which have potential reputational risks for the authority”
A4: Cut of £1.3M - Remodelling building based day services - Day centre provision is often
used to meet the needs of vulnerable people who are at risk of isolation, to
develop life skills and to provide meaningful activities. There are four centres
within the borough, provided by in-house services. They are the Leemore centre,
Narborhood Centre, Ladywell and Mulberry .. This proposal is to remodel the in-house
service so that opportunities are offered to customers in smaller community based
groups. As outlined in other proposals, service users will be actively encouraged
to make greater use of existing community, leisure and educational facilities
and social venues in and outside of the borough. Partnership work with external
providers will be further developed to make more creative use of centres and
reduce the need for the existing number”.
A5: Cut of £275K - Charging for Adult Social Care services - proposals to increase changes for
non-residential adult social care. “The users of these services are vulnerable adults,
usually on low incomes. Any increase in charges will reduce the disposable
income of some clients although the [income support] buffer of 25% will
continue to provide a level of protection to those on the lowest incomes”
A6/A8: Cut of £3.3M - Public Health programme review – a series of cuts
to programmes covering Dental Public Health; Health Inequalities; Mental Health; Health
Protection; Maternal and Child Health; NHS Health Checks, Obesity;/Physical
Activity- Public Health Advice; Sexual Health.; Smoking and Tobacco Control;
Training and Education.
“There is a risk that reducing
funding to some of these organisations will destabilise them financially and have
a negative impact on the populations they support. Affected organisations
include: Forvil; Citizens Advice Bureau
(CAB) and Voluntary Action Lewisham (VAL)”.
Decommissioning CAB Money
Advice in 12 GP surgeries (£148K)
Reduce contract value of sexual
health by a further £350k. This would
likely mean closure of at least one sexual health clinic.
Stop/reduce supply of HIV tests
to GP practices (£25k)
Stop funding chlamydia and
gonorrhoea screening in GP practices (£26k)
Reduce the contract value for
community health improvement service by limiting service to support mandatory
Public health programmes such as NHS Healthchecks only and reduce other health
inequalities activity. (£270k) “This would have a major impact on the work on health inequalities throughout the
borough, reduce support for various public health programmes, most notably
the Healthcheck programme ... It would also make the neighbourhood model of
delivery for community development health improvement services extremely
challenging to implement”.
£348K cuts in smoking and tobacco
control including by reducing contract value for stop smoking service by £250k (30%), stop most schools and young people’s tobacco awareness programmes: “likely to
have a significant impact on the ability of Lewisham to reduce the prevalence
of smoking”
£68K cuts in maternal and child
health “Reduce capacity/funding for breast feeding peer support programme &
breast feeding cafes” and “child death review process”
Section B – Supporting People – proposed cuts of
£1.35M
A series of cuts to supported
housing and floating support services affecting high-support hostels, shared
supported housing and in the community that could affect individual client
groups, such as drug and alcohol users, women experiencing violence and
exploitation, offenders and rough sleepers .
The Council paper says clearly:
“Any losses to the floating
support service will carry increased risk of more households becoming homeless
Loss of hostel bed spaces will
inevitably lead to pressure elsewhere within council resources
Further reductions in funding my
impact on staff quality and morale to such an extent that service users are put
at risk
Numbers of people living on the streets in Lewisham will rise
significantly
Anti social behaviour on the streets in Lewisham may rise significantly”
Section E – Asset Rationalisation – proposed cuts
of £949K
Mainly unspecified plans to save
on buildings e.g trying to relocate community and youth services into schools
and (£25k) by dimming the street lights!
Section J – School Effectiveness – proposed cuts of
£751K
Mainly by charging schools more
for services such as Educational Psychologists – so increased pressure on school budgets
and/or cuts in service if schools don’t buy-in.
Section K – Crime Reduction – proposed cuts of
£974K
£574k from cuts in Drug and
Alcohol Services
£200 k from cuts to the Youth
Offending Service
“Young people will not be able to
attend the diverse range of programmes that are currently in existence which
will be tailored to their offending behaviour. Instead, young people will attend
more generic programmes”
£200K from cuts to Integrated
Offender Management Service
“Those who are involved in the
criminal justice system are notoriously difficult to engage in drug/alcohol
treatment services. Without additional support this engagement is even less
likely which means that their criminal
activity is likely to continue with all the associated impacts on other
Lewisham residents”.
Section L – Culture and Community Services £1.4M
cuts proposed
L1: Most of this is £1.125M cuts in voluntary and community service
grants – out of a total £5.9M budget – so a 20% cut overall.
The various organisations
supported by grants are not listed but:
“The level of reduction proposed is likely to lead to some organisations
losing significant levels of funding. This could mean the closure of some groups
and the loss of some services that are no longer deemed to be a priority”.
Also L2: Cuts in staffing in the libraries service
Section N – Environmental Services - £740K
N1: £340K Closing or ceasing to maintain a number of small parks,
highway enclosures and closed churchyards (and trying to get ‘community involvement’ to do
the jobs instead)
“Depends
on appetite and capacity of local groups to take on extra responsibilities ... Reduced maintenance
regimes may lead to more visible litter,
graffiti and increased fly tipping”
N2: Reduction in street cleaning frequency £400K
Specifics are not spelled out but
“No of posts affected 14 ... There will be a reduction in the frequencies that
we sweep all residential roads which will result in a build up of litter,
detritus and weeds. Streets will be unswept for longer periods”
O: Public Services – proposed cuts of £650K
Includes ending of discretionary Freedom Pass scheme (200K savings).
“There will be a high impact on
persons with a disability as it withdraws their current entitlement to free
travel. Sampling shows that 68% of these will be entitled to alternative travel
concessions. The remaining 32% will no longer have support. Information will be
provided to all about alternatives and most economic ways to use public
transport”
Q Safeguarding / Early Intervention Services
further cuts of £4.1M for 2015/16
Q1 Redesign Children Centre offer
Changing children centre contracts
as they are re-procured to:
A shift the costs of providing
reception and administration
B reduce the unit cost of working with each family
C reduce the number of families to be worked with by a third
The proposal means that
Children’s Centres will be redesignated so that they will be allowed to offer a
lower standard of service “So that they can operate more flexibly and at a
lower cost” They may e.g. open for fewer hours/weeks.
The proposal is also to support 3800 families rather than the 5500
families currently targeted by the service – i.e a third fewer families.
Q2: Reduction in Youth Service Provision – proposed
cuts of EITHER £3.1 M now OR £1.4 M this year – but rest of cut to be made in
three years - given that the total budget is £3.5M, this means the reduction of the Youth Service to “a statutory service model only”
Option 1
looks at an option of mutualisation of the youth service following savings. “The
proposal is the Council should stop funding the mutual entirely after the third
year, generating a further £1.7m saving. There is a risk that the mutual will
not at the end of 3 years, be sustainable and therefore a risk, that without
continuing Council funding at some level, services cannot be guaranteed”
Option 2
considers a move straight away to a statutory service only model.
“Given
the extent of savings required by the Council and the risk that option 1 could
still require Council funding after a mutual has been in operation for three
years, option 2 proposes moving directly to a statutory service model only”.
Even if Option One was
considered, these are the immediate cuts proposals:
"The Youth Service currently
maintains 7 youth centres and 5 adventure playgrounds (APGs) ... In order to
release savings across the Service it is proposed that the Service retains 5
youth centres and 5 APGs, while removing staff from 2 youth centres and reducing
front-line staff headcount commensurately. Removing staff from these sites
will allow the 2 centres to be operated by voluntary/community providers or to
close. Currently proposals are to close or pass on Ladywell and Rockbourne
youth centres
From its youth centres, the
Service operates a street-based outreach
capacity comprised of 3.4 fte support youth workers with an ability to operate
15 hours of outreach work per week. It is proposed that the Service remove this
capacity.
Ending Council-run provision at 2
youth centres and ending the street-based outreach capacity will mean Reduction of Youth Workers from 17.5fte to
10 fte, and reduction of manager and business support capacity yields a savings of £370,000
In order to release further
budget savings, but still maintain the Service’s integral relationship with the
community and voluntary sector, it is proposed
that the commissioning fund be reduced by 31%. (savings of £293,000).The
commissioning fund is used to procure a broad range of activities focused on
building life skills for young people from the voluntary sector that serve to
supplement the Youth Service’s direct delivery and ensure a range of youth
provision across the borough”.
One third reduction in the
commissioning fund will lessen provision and also require a reprioritisation
and reallocation across currently commissioned providers. There are various voluntary sector providers who rely on Council and
Youth Service funding to sustain operations and it is likely that some
providers will have to either reduce or suspend operations.
