Thank you to all of the people who have sent VentnorBlog the following information – letting us share it with all our readers.
The Isle of Wight council has been holding “Budget Consultation” meetings with people recently.
30 minutes to balance the budget
One reader who got in touch, described the meetings as the council taking an hour to tell the assembled people why they should make cuts and how large the cuts were going to be.
Next, they were put into groups and, much to the surprise of the people there, were told that they had only half an hour to decide what money they felt should continue to be spent and what should be cut.
A task near impossible – particularly as the assembled strangers had been thrown together into random groups, so hadn’t got to know each other.
Is this going to be held up as ‘consultation’?
As one person who contacted VB observed, “We can only hope that the council spends a little while longer when they’re going through their official decision making process.”
We’re delighted to bring the details to a wider audience.
| SERVICE AREA | Description | GROSS COST £000 |
INCOME £000 |
TOTAL NET COST £000 |
COST PER HEAD OF POP. £ |
DO WE? |
| Tourist information centres | The council currently operates 6 Tourist Information Centres in Shanklin, Sandown, Yarmouth, Cowes, Ryde, Newport. They provide information on accommodation and attractions and booking services for travel, theatre and accommodation. They also retail related tourism gifts and books. | 438 | 128 | 310 | £2.21 | Cease providing this service and look to provide more comprehensive information online? |
| Leisure centres | The council provides the leisure facilities at the Heights, Medina Leisure Centre, Waterside Pool and Westridge. | 3,819 | 1,580 | 2,239 | £16.00 | Have less leisure centres? Reduced opening hours? Increase charges? |
| Sports development | The council works to promote sport and physical activity and increase the numbers participating on the Island including developing and supporting Island sports clubs, Talented & Gifted Athlete initiatives, coordination of sports events eg Primary Schools Games, World Youth Island Games, developing coaches, sports officials and administrators and increasing volunteers in sport. | 1,141 | 306 | 835 | £5.96 | Reduce support grants? Seek more private or voluntary sector involvement? |
| Public Realm (including Parks & Gardens, Countryside & Public Conveniences) | The council keeps parks and gardens across the island. It also provides over 70 public convenience facilities across the Island. | 2,835 | 427 | 2,408 | £17.20 | Maintain fewer directly? Hand over responsibility to town and parish councils through their budget precepts? Seek volunteer support? |
| Waste Collection, Disposal & Recycling | The council is responsible for the collection, recycling and disposal of waste from over 67,000 domestic properties on the island. There are also 60 mini recycling sites and three household recycling centres as well as the gasification plant. Residents are provided with a weekly rubbish collection, a fortnightly recycling collection and a weekly food waste collection. The council has contracted island waste services to provide these services as part of the integrated waste management contract. | 7,252 | 52 | 7,200 | £51.43 | Improve recycling? Reduce collection frequency? |
| Bus Subsidies & Wightbus | The council provides subsidies to transport operators for certain local bus routes. A number of routes on the local bus network depend upon financial support from the Council. Many evening and Sunday services, including some connecting the Island’s principal towns and those in rural areas, depend upon such subsidy or they would not be provided at all. | 2,974 | 2,255 | 719 | £5.14 | Reduce subsidies? Seek volunteer/ community support? Increase to reduce potential isolation and risk of additional costs down the line? Cease Wightbus operation? Increase charges? Encourage community services? |
| Concessionary Fares | The council is required to part-fund the local cost of running a national scheme whereby every person over the age of 60 (residents and visitors) receives free bus travel during off-peak hours. | 4,482 | 1,782 | 2,700 | £19.29 | Seek to reduce impact of free bus travel for tourists? Reduce to statutory minimum scheme? |
| Chain Ferry | The Cowes Ferry (also known as the Floating Bridge) is a chain ferry which operates 365 days a year and is in service to convey passengers and vehicles on the short crossing, between Cowes and East Cowes, for around 18 hours each day. | 660 | 655 | 5 | £0.04 | Introduce charges for passengers? Replace ferry with passenger launch? Invest in new ferry – at estimated cost of £1.79 per head/per annum? Cease altogether? |
| Parking | The Council provides parking permits for residents to allow them to park at reduced cost when using Council owned car parks. The charge for the permit is £500 pa. The Council provides pay and display car parks and on-street parking in a number of areas across the Island. Charges are made for parking in these areas depending on whether they are long stay or short stay parking areas, and Penalty Charge Notices are issued to vehicles which contravene a traffic regulation order for the parking area. | 2,124 | 5,516 | -3,392 | -£24.23 | Increase charges? Increase parking restrictions? |
| Planning Services | Planning services has responsibility for hosting the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Partnership. We are responsible for conservation and design, protecting and enhancing the character and appearance of listed buildings and conservation areas. We provide development control considering planning applications and giving planning advice, hearing appeals and taking enforcement action. We are also responsible for planning policy documents including the Unitary development plan. | 3,451 | 815 | 2,636 | £18.83 | Reduce in discretionary elements in line with devolved management to local town and parish councils? |
| Building Control | The Council is responsible for providing building control and information about building regulations and general construction advice. | 655 | 427 | 228 | £1.63 | Increase charges to cover costs? Cease service and leave to market place? |
| Tourism services (excluding TICs) | Tourism is estimated to be worth in excess of £360m to the island economy. The council works closely with the Chamber of Commerce as well as undertaking the marketing of the Island to visitors. We also run the destination management on line booking system. | 675 | 199 | 476 | £3.40 | Cease / reduce and encourage industry to invest more? |
| Economic Investment | The council works with Regional and European agencies to develop the economic well being of the island. It has also been successful in securing a bid for a cross-Solent Local Enterprise Partnership whose focus will be to deliver the 3 year action plan to drive job creation, inward investment (with a focus on renewable ie green businesses) and improving skills and productivity. | 699 | 96 | 603 | £4.31 | Focus investment? Increase to support wider economy and secure new jobs? |
| Help Centres | The council operates 4 help centres across the Island; Ryde, Wootton Bridge, West Wight and Newport. Help centre staff can deal with a range of enquiries about a wide range of council and other public services resolving as many as possible at the point of contact. | 196 | 6 | 190 | £1.36 | Less help centres? More online information and support? Reduced opening hours? |
| Democratic Services (excluding member costs) | The Service delivers a range of services key to ensuring democracy is delivered within the law – particularly Elections and the Committee and Scrutiny functions. The council also provides support to Elected Members to allow them to undertake their constitutional and constituent role and fulfils the Parish Liaison function with parish/town councils. The Registrars team carries out the function of the registration of births, deaths, marriages, civil partnerships and citizenship ceremonies Land Charges functions also included ensure that the Council can deliver quality and timely Local Land Charge Searches to the community. |
1,720 | 576 | 1,144 | £8.17 | Reduce member meetings? |
| School management and curriculum development (78% funding from Sure Start, Dedicated Schools Grant, Area Based Grant and other Specific Grants) | Providing support to schools with regard to teaching and learning management support, gifted and talented programmes, healthy schools and extended schools support. Providing also a quality assurance role re schools. | 4,168 | 3,241 | 927 | £6.62 | Hand over to schools or providers to manage and fund through schools grant? |
| Special Educational Needs (95% funding from Dedicated Schools Grant) | The council provides support for children with special educational needs who have learning difficulties or disabilities that make it harder for them to learn than most children of the same age. The council will conduct an assessment of special educational needs (SEN) may be considered when a child has severe or complex educational needs and for which additional resources, or alternative provision may be required to meet their needs and the special help they should have at school. | 5,210 | 4,997 | 213 | £1.52 | Reduce staffing? Hand over costs to schools? Commission support from vol sector? |
| Parenting & Family Support (partly funded from Sure Start and Dedicated Schools Grant) | The council provides a range of support to help families and parents including welfare, parenting, behavioural, and support to families of children with disabilities | 3,150 | 598 | 2,552 | £18.23 | Reduce this or merge with other family support services such as Supporting People? Increase to prevent further expenditure down the line? |
| Supporting People | Supporting People is a government programme that gives money to housing-related support services to help people to live independently in the community. | 4,112 | 3,044 | 1,068 | £7.63 | Join up services to support people (e.g. family and homelessness) and reduce staffing? Reduce support? And signpost to voluntary and community sector? Increase to prevent future costs? |
| Adult & Community/Family Learning | The council provides learning programmes for adults in community settings in a range of subjects in order to support personal development, well being and community spirit. The service also manages the Carnival Learning Centre in Ryde and supports carnival arts across the Island. Family Learning programmes encourage families to learn together; to gain skills in helping support their children’s learning and/or brush up their own skills in reading, writing and maths. | 1,197 | 996 | 201 | £1.44 | Reduce investment? Seek voluntary/community support? |
| Adult Social Care (excluding Learning Disability – see below) | The council offers a wide range of care services for adults including teams of specialist workers in social services centres to assess needs, offer advice and provide counselling and support to service users and their carers. Other services include for example: Home care services Day care services Residential and nursing care Direct payments and personal budgets Respite care Meals on wheels |
46,070 | 12,825 | 33,245 | £237.46 | Look to other providers for service delivery? |
| Learning Disabilities | The council works in partnership with voluntary and other organisations to offer a wide range of services for people with a learning disability and their carers including: Assessment and care management Home and day care services Residential and nursing home placements Direct payments and personal budgets Support with finding employment and learning opportunities Advocacy services |
10,686 | 1,593 | 9,093 | £64.95 | Look to other providers for service delivery? |
| Community Safety | The council operates a range of services to keep communities safer on the Island including CCTV, dog service, drug treatment services, bereavement services and community safety officers. | 5,280 | 2,935 | 2,345 | £16.75 | Join up services with the police and bring together overlapping roles? Look to other providers for service delivery? |
| Attractions e.g. Ventnor Botanic Garden, Dinosaur Isle, Roman Villa | The council operates 3 resident/visitor attractions; Ventnor Botanic Garden, Dinosaur Isle in Sandown and Newport Roman Villa. | 1,205 | 568 | 637 | £4.55 | Cease council subsidies and explore potential for other organisations/individuals to run? Increase charges? |
| Library & Heritage Services | The council runs 11 libraries, the home library, mobile library, schools library and the prison library service. We run 4 museums, the island archives and archaeological services. | 3,453 | 386 | 3,067 | £21.91 | Less libraries? Less libraries with longer opening hours? Ask schools to open their libraries to the community? Ask shops etc. to offer the service? Reduced opening hours? Increased charges? Better use of mobile service (e.g. expand to include other council services)? Re-house exhibits elsewhere? Investigate volunteer staffing? Other community or private sector involvement? |
| Environmental Health & Licensing | The council operates an environmental health service to enforce standards relating to food, health and safety, environmental protection and licensing in local shops, pubs, businesses and communities. We respond to requests for assistance from members of the public, traders, and other partner agencies as well as providing advice, seminars and running promotional campaigns. | 1,224 | 464 | 760 | £5.43 | Reduce level of service? |
| Trading Standards | The council operates a trading standards service which provides advice, educates and enforces a range of standards to protect consumers and businesses on the Island. | 496 | 39 | 457 | £3.26 | Reduce level of service? |
