Page 50 - Phonebox Magazine March 2012

Councillor Corner
A contribution from Cllr Debbie Brock and Cllr Peter Geary
Hopefully winter has finally given way to spring and we are starting to look to the year ahead. Local and parish councils across the country have been setting budgets and deciding upon tax rates. Parish councils have the opportunity to raise a precept and this is added to your council tax bill along with the precept from the Fire Authority and the Police Authority. The major part of your council tax bill will be made up from the charge that is placed by Milton Keynes Council. This is however just one part of the budget that goes to make up the amount of money that Milton Keynes council has to spend every year on its priorities, all these things come together in the budget that the Council has to agree every year.
THE BUDGET
Every year councils across the country have to set a balanced budget. This needs to show funding sources and amounts of income every council will receive and also how they will spend their money. This is a difficult time for many councils, as part of the deficit reduction by the coalition government, grants to local government are being cut at an unprecedented rate. Last year saw large savings needing to be made by Milton Keynes Council and this year that has continued. What makes this harder is that Milton Keynes Council does not have any reserves or savings above what it is required to hold by law.
This year Milton Keynes will have to save over £14m from its revenue budget which will total then of a budget just over £200m and savings must be found repeatedly for the next four years. This has therefore been a challenging time. Many of the easy savings were made last year which has made the job of balancing the budget this year even harder. The commitment made by the new administration however was to protect frontline services as much as possible when reducing the budget and instead look for the harder to make but much more necessary efficiencies in the council.
To assist the council in this work a cross party committee of councillors will work to review the budget and make suggestions to officers and the administration on how this should be done. They will then review the proposals again and make recommendations before the budget is decided.
This year the committee made a number of initial recommendations including a recommendation that fees and charges the council makes should be in line with the market rate, not just raised by the standard inflationary amount. This was indeed taken on board and many fees have been raised to match this cross party recommendation. One such set of fees are the fees that are charged at the crematorium and indeed the charges for use of council cemeteries. Last year these were raised by 16.2% for the crematorium and 20% for burial charges. This year we are keeping these below 10%.
The proposed budget for this year does not see any increase proposed in Council Tax. Like last year the government offered an extra grant to councils if they did not raise council tax and Milton Keynes Council will be taking this. Of the money Milton Keynes Council spends over £90m is spent on procuring goods and services.
This is where many efficiencies
have been made, by buying our
products cheaper and better.
The administration has also
made cuts to the senior and
middle management, not from
front line services, once again
these will not affect services. The administration has also looked at doing things differently. One example is street cleansing. In the past we used to landfill what was swept from the streets. This contract has been renegotiated and now we are composting this waste, this in turn yields a product that can be sold or given away, saves landfill space and also means that we save £50k a year in costs. This is only one of many ways that things are changing to cut the deficit but highlights that efficiencies are there to be made without cutting front line services and improvements can be made at the same time if only we think a little differently about things.
RIDE fOR MAyA
Twenty four keen cyclists, including MK Councillor Hannah O’Neil, will be cycling 500 miles over five days from Le Mans via Paris to Olney raising funds in support of a very special little girl called Maya. Maya lives in Olney and has a condition called Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), she is supported by the national children’s charity The Cauldwell Trust who are assisting Maya & her family to get the most appropriate wheelchair to help her mobility enabling her to participate with many everyday activities & fun with her friends.
There are many fundraising events between now & when the cyclists will ride into Olney on June 30th to get involved with & have some fun along the way:
Family Fun Day on 12th May 2012 at The Olney Rugby Club, this event is being sponsored by Marcus Jordan & Co and there will be many activities including stocks and sponges for cyclists (wonder if Hannah’s heard about that...?), also: Bouncy castle, Face paints and water tattoos, Cake stand and tea/coffee/soft drinks, Cake decorating and craft stand, Stocks and sponges for cyclists, Hook a duck, Lucky dip, Pedalathon – using an exercise bike or indoor bike turbo trainer. Treasure hunt for children.
Another date for your diary is an Auction Night at The Carlton Club in Olney on 9th June with some fantastic lots coming together.
Good luck to all involved in the Ride for Maya and if you’d like to find out more you can visit www.b2bcycle.co.uk or go to the JustGiving page or text MAYA50 and your chosen amount to 70070 if you’d like to make a donation.
Surgery
As always we run our surgery on the first Friday of every month at the Olney centre between 7:30 and 8:30 pm. If we can help you with any issue then please feel free to come along and we will do our best to help.
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50 Phonebox Magazine