East Sussex County Council has recently announced savage cuts to services, with Children’s Services at the forefront of the attack.
The proposed 8.6% cut in Children’s Services in one year is the highest of any council department. 6/10 of the Children’s Service areas are in the council’s ‘High Impact’ cuts category- and around half of the 400 jobs expected to go are in Children’s Services.
East Sussex Council has the 4th highest cash level reserves nationally- £130 Million. The figures for the cuts in East Sussex Council do NOT include the grants to services direct from the central government. These grants are expected to have a far larger percentage cut.
The following are a few of the council’s estimates:
· Youth Opportunity Fund 100% CUT .
· Sure Start Centres 25% CUT.
· Youth Offending Teams 25% CUT,
· Diploma local delivery support 100% CUT,
· National Challenge school support 100% CUT,
· Family Learning 25% CUT,
· Music Service 25% CUT ,
The impact of cuts in Government grants will, as a East Sussex Children’s Service senior manager explained: ‘leave no-one unaffected’. Many services will now be able to offer the minimum legal support to young people and families.
Again any examples we give are only a small selection of the planned cuts and do not represent those that we necessary regard as having the most impact. Inclusion support will no longer carry out preventative work, training for staff and advice for parents will no longer be available. Youth Clubs and Children’s Centres will close. The Connexions service will no longer be available to the majority of young people, Early years support is to be cut by 60%.
School Staff will feel the cuts in children’s services impact them in many ways. Not only will advice, support and training offered by the services be radically reduced, school budgets already set to decrease in real terms (despite government promises) will have to be used to buy in services that have previously been supplied by East Sussex County Council. This will mean less money for schools, greater workload for those working in schools and opens up the risk of redundancies in schools as budgets are stretched.
CAN YOU TAKE ACTION NOW TO OPPOSE THE CUTS ?
East Sussex County Council is an elected authority. You elect local councillors to take decisions about the council’s budget and policy. Your local County councillor may not be knocking on your door until 2013 to ask for your vote- but trade unionists have long memories !
In the meantime, write to your councillor and urge them to oppose these cuts that will damage children and young people in our county. You can find out who your local councillor is, and their mailing and e-mail address by clicking here.
Phil Clarke is Secretary of Lewes, Eastbourne and Wealden NUT, and Chair of the Brighton Stop the Cuts Campaign.
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