Isle of Wight councillors will be considering and voting on the Isle of Wight council’s budget for 2024-25 next week.
Despite the promise of an additional £3m from the government, the council still have to make savings (read cuts) of £2,750,000 from their £144.5 million budget.
The one-off boost to the council’s funding comes against the backdrop of cuts to Government funding since 2010 of more than £93 million.
Financial challenges
The council say it costs £23.7 million more each year to provide services on the Island – because we are an Island – compared to a mainland authority.
The Island Deal (an additional amount of funding needed *every* year) to help the council manage rising costs of providing services to Islanders has still not materialised from the Government, despite promises made over many years.
Where the cuts are being made
Papers for the budget meeting, which takes place on Wednesday 28th February 2024 from 5pm at County Hall, lays out where the savings (cuts) will be made, or where additional income will be gained through increased fees.
They include items such as savings of £62,000 due to a ‘Review of Market Supplement paid to Approved Mental health Practitioners’, or savings of £80,000 through the ‘Withdrawal of grant funding for Raising Standards Training for private care providers’.
£92,000 will be saved by reduction administration staff in the Children and Families service area, as well as £15,000 through a reduction in officer support to Cabinet members.
Other ‘savings’
A ‘Restructure of the Libraries and Heritage Service’ that will ‘not impact services users’ should save £24,000 next year, whilst the plan to reduce concessionary fares budget (in line with actual spend for the last three years) should result in savings of £500,000.
You can read all the details in the paper below, or see the agenda which has links to several other relevant documents.
Members will be debating the budgets from 5pm on Wednesday 28th February 2024. Residents can watch live via the Agenda (a link will appear on the day you can click on).
