A BUDGET that cuts Powys council’s spending by more than £10m has been condemned as an attack on the county’s children.
Powys County Council passed the £237.1m budget, which also includes a proposed 4.25% rise in the council tax, at its full meeting at County Hall, Llandrindod Wells.
Among the £10.4m cuts included in the budget are a reshaping of the county’s youth service and a 20% cut to the children and young people’s partnership and youth justice board.
Cuts to children’s services will save the council £1.734m over the next two years.
Cuts of more than £2m over three years, including £450,000 this year, are planned for adult services, including support for the elderly and people with learning disabilities.
Primary school pupils will see funding for breakfast clubs removed to save £460,000 this year while the school admission age for children will raise to four from September 2017 to save £1.4m over two years.
Huw Williams, the unaligned independent member for Ystradgynlais, slammed the budget as an attack on the young.
The former council youth worker told the meeting: "I cannot support this budget as I believe children’s services and services to young people in Powys are suffering an unprecedented attack.
"A budget is a vehicle for delivering services, it does no other purpose, but the vehicle has a faulty component which may cost us money in the long run.
"The proposed budget cuts to children’s services, an arbitrary 20% salami slice, lets down our most vulnerable and young people. I have mentioned this in every budget seminar since September."
Cllr Williams said cuts to the youth justice board and looked after children have been identified as high risk but remain in the budget and said various support services to children and families are being cut or reduced.
"These cuts may cost us in future. It may be a budget for change but frontline services are being cut.
"To add salt to the wound, following an improved Welsh Government settlement a second chance was provided for this budget to address the identified high risk areas but the cabinet chose to ignore this opportunity.
"It is the young people who in Powys who are going to suffer," warned Cllr Williams.
Brecon’s Labour councillor, Matthew Dorrance said he opposed the cuts to school breakfast clubs which he said are a "fantastic resource" for taking children out of poverty and that research shows: "children with fully bellies learn better."
He also criticised the cabinet for reinstating a proposed charge to charities for training on domestic abuse. The cabinet dropped the proposal from last year’s budget following an emotional plea by Cllr Dorrance.
Council deputy leader, Wynne Jones the cabinet member for finance, said education, children’s services and adult social care account for two thirds of the council’s budget.
"We cannot make all the savings from the rest, yes we could but we’d be shutting 50% of the rest down. You’d be shutting libraries on mass. You have to find savings across the big spending areas."
Cllr Jones added he didn’t believe services could continue like they had for 15 years without being reformed and said services had survived significant cuts.
"We have saved £53m since 2012 and I can’t see the cracks," said Cllr Jones who added: "It is not about putting children at risk it is about changing the way we deliver these services to children."
Cllr Jones had commended the budget to the council and said the cabinet had been planning it since June. However it could only confirm the budget in early February when the Welsh Government agreed at the last minute to provide the council with an additional £1.9m this year.
That meant the council’s main source of funding, from the Welsh Government, will reduce by £5m this year. That cut and other funding pressures forced the council to find £10.4m of savings to produce a balanced budget.
Cllr Jones said the cabinet is changing the way services are delivered so that they are maintained in some form, with the authority expected to have to have cut spending by 90m in the period from 2012 to 2019.
He said: "This is a budget for change, it’s not about cut, cut, cut.
"If we don’t drive that change it will not deliver the 2020 vision and it will be back to plan B, slash and burn. That is the easiest way but it is not the way anyone in this chamber wants to go."
The deputy leader said he was "proud" the council was able to fund extra protection for schools, worth £1.273m, and more cash for adult social care, of £1.053m, in the budget.
Funding pressures on the council include a pensions liability, which "really worries," Cllr Jones, more than £400,000 to fund the living wage for council staff and to respond to the impact of the new minimum ’living wage’ for council suppliers, and £150,000 to fund its commitments to meet new Welsh language standards.
Liberal Democrat group leader John Morris was angered that he’d been unable to have his say on the budget after the debate was cut short to allow a vote to take place.
The Labour group criticised cuts to children’s services and Conservative leader Aled Davies said Powys residents are having to contribute nearly 30% of the council’s full budget through council tax while in some other areas of Wales council tax is only 20% of council budgets.
Councillors approved the budget, with 34 voting in favour and 22 against. Four members abstained from the vote.
The council also approved the capital spending programme for the years 2016 to 2020.
It includes £17.6m for a new school to replace Llandrindod and Builth Wells high schools, a £19.4m contribution towards a new school campus in Brecon and £22.6m for new primary schools in the Gwernyfed catchment area. £1m, to spend in the 2017/18 financial year, is also included for new classrooms at Crickhowell High School.
£8.1m is allocated towards the redevelopment of the Brecknock Museum, known as the Brecon Cultural Hub, and £300,000 towards fitting out the library which is to move into the new museum building.
The council has also set aside £1.1m to be spent this year for leisure centre improvements. The county’s leisure centres are now run on the council’s behalf by a private operator.
Councillors also agreed a proposal by Conservative leader Aled Jones to add an additional £1.1m towards the major improvement fund for schools but rejected his plan to have a one year £500,000 fund to improve buildings transferred from the council’s ownership to community groups.