The Green Isle of Wight councillor, Cllr Michael Lilley, shares his budget amendment. Ed
As Councillors meet this week to decide on the Isle of Wight council’s budget, the IW Greens have come up with an alternative way of tackling the causes behind the reasons why so many Islanders are dependent on public services.
Austerity has hit local government harder than almost any other service. Local government has been transformed and continues to be beaten by the Government’s savage cuts since 2010.
Time for Tories to fight back
Instead of accepting Government cuts, IW Greens are calling on the Tory majority on Isle of Wight Council to fight back.
Green Councillor, Michael Lilley states:
“The Isle of Wight Council is hit by a double whammy, in that it is faced not only by savage cuts, but has a historic financial disadvantage compared to mainland authorities. Portsmouth University in its report on Isle of Wight finances has stated that the IOW Council has a £6.5 million disadvantage per year compared to mainland Counties/unitary authorities.
“The IW Council has to provide the Island population with services from this yearly disadvantage. The IW Council Conservative Administration’s perspective is their only choice is to ‘cut’ to services whether they hit the most vulnerable or not. IW Greens disagree with this view as this budget will only make people poorer and more dependent on statutory services.
“In order to making real savings the IW Council needs to ‘think out of the box’ long-term and tackle the causes of poverty and deprivation on the Island with new approaches, as well as campaigning for legislation to finally get acknowledgement that this Island has unique problems and needs further support.”
Managed decline
The budget being considered by Councillors on 28th February will result in cuts to services which support families, care for older and disabled people and prevent homelessness. This is despite a 6% proposed increase in council tax. Cllr Michael Lilley (Green Party) will be proposing an amendment to the Conservative’s Administration proposed budget at IW Council Meeting.
Cllr Lilley said,
“Cutting is simply managed decline, and an abdication of responsibility. We need a long-term budget. Our position is that in spite of the cuts proposed, we still need to think long term. We should invest in transformation for the longer term now, and then save and pay less later.”
Reinstate and re-invest
The aim of the IW Green Party 2018/19 amendment is to reinstate and re-invest specific £1.1M budgets items, that are linked to high cost vulnerable adults and children, through tactical use of reserves in the next 12 months, with the aim to work with the Island’s voluntary sector in developing a £5-8M Island Social Impact Bond, which would be operational and established in 2019/20. This would be new money to the Island from National Social Investment programmes.
Cllr Lilley said,
“Instead we need to invest now in improving services through new approaches, which will reap benefits later. The bottom line for the budget should be no cuts that disadvantage the vulnerable members of our community, together with investment in services which deliver what we need in Isle of Wight as well as saving money and providing a more environmentally and financially sustainable future.”
The Greens also propose a new approach to future budgets by reducing the reliance of the most vulnerable Islanders on benefits, council grants and support by radicalising the commissioning of services and working with the voluntary sector and community in providing opportunities for Island residents to improve their lives instead of making them feel ignored, forgotten and poorer.
Further Information
The SIB would finance the new Green Innovation and Life Skills Centre at Branston Farm from 2019/20.
This would involve transfer or lease of Branson Farm to a new community asset company established by voluntary/community (through Isle of Wight Community Action) sector that would be commissioned by a social investor through the commissioning of a social impact bond by the local authority.
This would be £2M social investment in 2019/20 and £1M per for six years and savings of £6M a year due to less people requiring statutory services as their personal circumstances have improved.
Positive outcomes
The outcomes would be:
- Reduction in numbers of care leavers moving into adult services through sustainable positive independent living and employment.
- Reduction of Adults with a Learning Difficulties and Disabilities within Adult Services through positive and sustainable independent living and employment.
- Reduction of children coming into care through reduction in domestic violence, alcohol and drug dependency within their families by positively improving their mental health and resilience.
- Reduction of numbers of adults and children coming into mental health and adult services due to mental health issues by helping them to tackle the causes of their depression and anxiety.
Empowering the community
This would have a huge impact on savings for IW Council in the future. The Council will be empowering the community and enabling the skills within the local voluntary sector to provide evidence based interventions that achieve these reductions.
The Island SIB would focus on reduction of the numbers of vulnerable adults and children/families coming into statutory services by having intensive supportive interventions that enable them to become more resilient, self-sufficient, and sustainable.
SIBs put the risk on the social investor not the local authority and therefore the Isle of Wight Council will radicalise its currently inefficient commissioning by focusing on only paying on achieved outcomes for people which would not effectively cost until 2023/24. SIBs are successfully operating across the UK in other local authorities.
References
1. https://www.triodos.co.uk/en/business/corporate-finance/meet-the-team/
2. https://impactinvestingconferences.com/
3. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/social-impact-bonds
4.
http://neweconomics.org/
The detail of the budget amendments and the response from the Section 151 officer can be found below.
