Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

It's been an eventful year in Hackney!

From passing a fifth council tax freeze in April, all three of us being re-elected in May with increased majorities, a new Labour Party Leader, our MP being elected to the Shadow Cabinet, to the sad news earlier this month of the government cuts to the money that Hackney so desperately needs, 2010 has certainly been a bit of a rollercoaster of a year.

2011 will certainly be no less hectic and will be a challenging year. There's a referendum on how we elect our representatives to Westminster, the next council budget in April will be a difficult one where we balance the needs to pass a legal budget with protecting our most precious front-line services and Alan is definitely running/walking/crawling the London Marathon.

We wish all of our constituents a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year - thank you for your continued support and interest in this blog. Keep warm and we hope that those of you hoping to go somewhere for Christmas manage to get there!

The Coalition Cuts - pt. 2

More details of the settlement that local authorities across England have received have been published.

The headline is that no council will have their funding cut by more than 8.9%. Hackney is one of those councils that will face this "maximum" cut of just under 9%.

The reality though is very different. Our budget from government has actually been cut by over 14%. That means that about half of the savings that the government has identified over four years will be delivered, effectively, in the first year. This is devastating to Hackney, because we need additional resources to deal with the challenges of being one of the poorest local authorities in Britain.

So how does the government claim that the cut is actually under 9% (which makes a huge difference in terms of the millions of pounds being cut)?

Well, the overall funding is being cut by over 14%. But the government has agreed some funding to help try to soften the blow (this is only one-off money and can't go into the base budget) and Hackney has been given about £5 million. On top of that there is some additional money for the local NHS (we don't know whether this has to be spent in a particular way) and then, for the first time ever, the government has said that we should also take into account the amount of money we raise from council tax. This creates the figure of the cut to our "spending power".

This is simply smoke and mirrors and can't hide the devastating levels of cuts. We have to be pleased though that Hackney is one of only 3 London boroughs to be receiving the additional money to try to soften the blow - and that's in no small part to the role we've been playing in highlighting the cuts.

Whilst Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Manchester and Rochdale all get cuts of (at least) 8.9%, other councils have odne much better. Richmond-Upon-Thames, Buckinghamshire and Surrey have seen cuts of less than 1%.

The government is taking money away from some of the poorest communities in Britain at a faster and higher rate than more affluent parts. Something is fundamentally wrong with this.

We continue to fight and continue to do our best to set a budget that protects as many of our frontline services as possible.

We will keep you updated.

The Coalition Cuts

As everyone will be aware, the issue of the national coalition government spending cuts has been in the news for the past few months. With many of their policies, it looks like it will continue to remain newsworthy.

There have been the local protests about cuts in funding to the Educational Maintenance Allowance, which especially in places like Hackney, makes all the difference for young people deciding about whether to stay on in education, or find work. It couldn't have been summed up better than in this article in The Guardian.

But this cut is only the beginning. Central government looks likely to have cut local authority finance dramtically, but - crucially - these cuts are front loaded, which means that the bulk of the cuts are due in April next year.

Hackney had planned well for the upcoming cuts. Samantha, who looks after council finance in her cabinet brief, had worked with officers and others to identify £26 million of cuts which would have protected front line services. This is on top of the year on year savings that had been achieved over the last 4 years by the Labour run council.

However, instead of looking at £26 million worth of cuts, we're looking at around £50-60 million. Despite the government claiming that the sums were wrong, they now seem to be accepting that the cuts will be more dramatic and swifter than even they had realised.

Hackney can not survive these cuts without impacting vital services. As Labour councillors, we will fight to ensure that when it comes to setting a budget, we will set one which will do the best that it can to protect services for the most vulnerable in our communities. We have no viable option to not set a budget - to refuse to set a budget, when we would be the only council doing so - would hand our budget over to unelected bean counters who have very different priorities.

We will continue to fight the cuts through a number of channels and will support national campaigns to help focus people's anger at the coalition government and what they have done.

Hackney wants to hear about what services you think should be protected most. Email them on:

budget@hackney.gov.uk

It simply isn't fair that Hackney, as one of the country's poorest areas, will be one of the ten councils to be hit the most by the cuts. Five of the ten councils most affected will be in thepoorest areas - the government's own figures show that the money taken from the poorest areas will be then redirected to the wealthiest. It just isn't fair. It isn't right and it isn't equitable.

We'll keep you posted about this incredibly important issue.

Snow is falling...

...and there is bound to be some disruption to some services like waste and recycling collection as a result.

However, the council has reassured us that it has more than enough grit for the main roads and that there is no risk of a shortage of supply - even last year we were one of the few councils to not run out.

The priorities for gritting remain the same - main routes, bus routes, pavements around health and educational facilities. Not all residential roads will be gritted and people should take extra care, especially as temperatures drop and slush can turn to ice.

Check the local news and weather and also the council website for updates on local disruption.

If you have any specific problems or requests, then please don't hesitate to let us know.

In the meantime, keep warm, wrap up when outside and be sure to check on elderly neighbours to make sure that they're ok.