BURNLEY is taking a battering from the first round of cuts announced by the Con/Dem coalition – with more on the way.
First on the target list is the town’s new Youth Bus, whiuch was set up to tackle anti-social behaviour and help reduce criminal damage and vandalism.
Local people had complained that – in common with other parts of the North West – the town lacked youth facilities, leaving teenagers prone to getting into trouble through bordeom and disaffection.
So a double-decker bus was converted into a social space and mini-internet café for local teenagers, to tour different parts of the town.
The results were immediate – the first six months saw damage and anti-social behaviour incidents drop by 700, including a 20.5 percent reduction in criminal damage.
In one area, Burnleywood, damage fell by 39 percent and anti-social behaviour by 18 percent in a 10-week period.
Now, thanks to the coalition government’s funding cut, Burnley Borough council has been driven to cut Youth Bus funding by 10 percent.
Reductions in area based grants – specifically targeted grants such as the Working Neighbourhoods Fund – are forcing Burnley to make further cuts.
The council will cut just over £500,000 from its Working Neighbourhoods Fund, Prevent and Cohesion spending. This includes £200,000 of expected funding already committed to key regeneration schemes, which the government has now refused to hand over.
Funding for police community support officers will fall by 20 percent, while community safety funding – which includes work to tackle domestic violence – is being cut by 10 percent. Two initiatives to tackle anti-social behaviour – NEAT and Clean Team – are taking a 7.6 per cent hit.
Burnley Council’s jobs match programme, Licence to Skill, is operated in partnership with private firm Vedas Services.
Confirmed figures from September 2008 show that midway through the project’s first year it had secured sustained (at least 13 weeks) employment for 68 previously unemployed people, at a total cost of £165,000 – £2,500 for each unemployed person.
But due to the central government funding cuts, the Licence to Skill jobs match programme is facing a 20 percent budget cut.
But worse is yet to come for Burnley. Likely cuts of £2m to the Housing Markets Renewal Programme and other announcements affecting economic projects mean that council managers expect total budget cuts of well over £3m this year.
Other councils are also facing similar cuts – why not tell us about them?
- Editor’s Note: This is an edited version of a post which first appeared on the excellent A Thousand Cuts blog
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- COUNTDOWN TO MARCH 26: latest transport information for the national demonstration against the cuts in London
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