No to cuts, no to consultants!

A short round up of the the situation on cuts in Rotherham by SP member Luke:

Metropolitan Borough Council (RMBC) have declared that they have another £18 million ‘savings’ to make in the 2021-22 financial year in order to ‘balance the budget’. These have been carried over from £16 million cuts already made in the last two years. These cuts are already known to include the closure of vital public services, such as Addison House in Maltby, an adult learning disability centre, which is due to close at the end of June despite a high profile union and carers’ campaign of 90,000 petition signatures, several big protests and a judicial review.

 

Rotherham: 'Everyone'?

With Labour councillors justifying further austerity measures by declaring that they have “no alternative” but to pursue them, a recent job listing for a ‘Head of Change and Innovation’ suggests they neither have any intention to oppose them. It seems RMBC are to pay a private consultant £550 a day to “achieve sustainable financial savings whilst ensuring services continue to meet the required outcomes of the Council”. What this really means is probable job cuts and further assaults on terms and conditions, meaning ordinary working people, including many of those who have been on the frontline during the pandemic, receiving less pay or pension. 

 

Unfortunately, paying consultants to advise on public services is widespread. In 2019, a freedom of information request conducted by the Times revealed that local councils across the UK had spent around £400 million on consulting firms in the last year alone, representing a rise of more than a fifth since 2014, despite coming under fire from officials and the general public.

In Rotherham, it seems clear that our elected officials are happy for ordinary working people to pay the price of the pandemic. We need to fight these cuts, put pressure on local authorities and councillors to use their reserves and prudential borrowing powers to avoid making cuts, and along with other local authorities, demand that relief funding is provided to ensure that necessary public services can continue to run as needed by their towns and communities.