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Under pressure

4:44pm Thursday 18th March 2010 in


As council tax letters start dropping through our letterboxes confirming the county council increase of 2.5%, Argus readers may be interested to know this is not all good news. Beneath the headlines of this “smallest ever” council tax increase, essential public services are under more pressure than ever before.

Cuts to the youth service budget of £2 million have been announced, which will surely mean the closure of youth centres. Cuts to library opening hours are currently being consulted on. The future of day centres for some of the most vulnerable disabled members of our community will be consulted on this summer.

We all benefit directly or indirectly from these services but they are under threat.

National research shows that, as well not wanting our local services privatised, most of us would be willing to pay slightly more council tax to preserve the essential public services.

If the average Band D taxpayer pays a few extra pence a week, it is worth millions to the authority – precious resources which could have been used to protect vital frontline services.

Chris Earwaker
Branch Secretary, UNISON West Sussex

Comments(5)

RottingdeanRant says...
5:51pm Thu 18 Mar 10

Still sounds like good news to me. Most other sectors are having to budget carefully and I see no reason why the council should be any different. More importantly, we should change to a fairer system such as local purchase tax so that everyone who uses local services pays towards the cost of these services.

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yorkie44 says...
6:37pm Thu 18 Mar 10

My pension hasn't increased this year because it is based on RPI which was negative last year, so some of us are looking for savings.

There is no such thing as an "average Band D taxpayer", everybody in the band is the same.

This small increase is not the real point it is about holding down the cost of taxes to bring the level back to sensible figures which we had before the massive rises under the Labour council.

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Warren Morgan says...
12:39pm Fri 19 Mar 10

These cuts are the thin end of the wedge, and we will see more if the Tories were to win the General Election. The Conservatives running the city council have put millions into reserves for pre-election spending whilst cutting services.

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fluffy1 says...
6:02pm Sun 21 Mar 10

rottingdeanrant has it wrong i'm afraid. this isn't about 'careful budgeting' - this is about cuts to frontline public services in order to hold tax rises artificially and damagingly low in an election year - the same election year that the west sussex county council leader, tory henry smith, tries (again) to win crawley from the incumbent labour mp. disgraceful abuse of his position to try and get himself that westminster seat. yorkie, this is about west sussex, RPI wasn't negative last year, and it might be nice if you thought of other less fortunate people who rely on frontline services like day centres for their quality of life rather than whether you've got an extra few quid in your pocket at the end of the year

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clearbluesky says...
2:47pm Mon 22 Mar 10

Hooray for the Conservatives! As a business owner I have seen my income drop and have had to make severe cut backs during the last 2 years including the loss of valued and highly talented employees. I don't see why the public sector should be insulated against cuts, especially at taxpayers expense when the taxpayer is more pressed than ever! Like many I welcome the pledge of major political Parties to protect public spending such as NHS funding, but at a local level, it's a completely different story and the less money the council has to spend, the less it has to waste! I wager that if 20-30% was slashed from Council tax bills and deep cuts made to services, the average person would notice no difference as long as their binds were still emptied. Bring on more cut backs!

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