Independents Keep Up the Pressure

In a recent Twitter post, Newham Independents have released the text of a letter sent to the mayor.

The revelation that Newham will have to find £175m to balance the books has shaken some councillors. The Independent Group have called on the mayor to be open about the cuts for this year.

Some £40m will have to be found in the current year and Mehmood Mirza, on behalf of the Independents would like to know where the mayor intends to slash the budget, (or sell off capital), by September.

It is possible that the mayor does not know yet, so we suggest that he doesn’t get his hopes up too high.

In order to be helpful, we have a couple of suggestions. The first is to cut the size of the mayor’s office. Currently, this costs around £1m pa to run. Additionally, the cost of allowances to councillors (without the admin support they receive), again runs close to £1m pa.

The mayor and Newham councillors are shortly going to make hundreds of staff redundant. Currently, they will do so from the comfort of having their second incomes (council allowances) protected. These range from £15,960 as a basic allowance (the minimum statutory requirement to collect this, is to attend one meeting every six months) to special responsibility allowances which add a further £43,882 to the pockets of some lucky members.

How about cutting both budgets in half?

£1m in savings is not a lot, given the scale of the problem, but £1m this year and for the subsequent two years will make £3m in savings. That is not to be sneezed at, especially as it can be obtained without any cuts in services and without any redundancies.

It will also show the staff who are at threat of losing their jobs, who will be unable to pay their mortgages or car loans, that the councillors are at least willing to share some of the pain.