YDNPA – Budget Cuts
An Association of Rural Communities news report on the special full Authority meeting of the YDNPA on February 3, 2011, when members agreed to the proposed budget cuts:
The National Parks have come off worse than all other local authority type organisations, the YDNPA’s head of finance and resources, Richard Burnett, told the members. The YDNPA’s budget will be profoundly affected by the cut to its core grant from Defra and the chief executive, David Butterworth warned:
“Let’s not kid ourselves – this is a very tough financial settlement – it is worse than we expected. The cuts over the next four years are in the region of £2 million. That is £2 million out of £5.7 million – anybody can see that is a very significant budget reorganisation.” He urged the members to get a grasp of that and added: “I was a bit taken aback by some of the discussion at the last Authority meeting when at least a couple of members were kind of running away with the idea that it was simply a question of us doing the same kind of things but with fewer people. That’s not the case. We will be doing considerably less than we are doing now. It’s not a question of doing more with less, but of doing less with less. We particularly need to get this across to the public. I think it is incumbent upon us all, officers and members, to recognise what is happening within our communities. The public doesn’t understand yet what is coming – though it is bound to hit more in the next few months.”
The figure of almost £2 million had been calculated by adding the cost of inflation to the expected cut in grants from Defra of £1.434m. But Mr Butterworth warned that Defra had only given a settlement for 2011/12, and then indicative figures for the next three years. This meant that Defra could reduce the settlements for those years, he said. When asking the members to approve a budget which included the deletion of 11 of the Authority’s 36 programmes and other cuts he said: “If you are proposing things going back into the budget something else has got to come out, because the bottom line is not changing.”
He continued: “We are going to be losing around 30 members of staff in a variety of different areas – voluntary redundancy, compulsory redundancy, retirements and the end of some existing contracts.”
N Yorks County Coun Stuart Parsons commented that at least the YDNPA was trying to reduce staff costs and retain front line services, as compared to Richmondshire District Council and North Yorkshire County Council.
He said afterwards: “If the county council actually reduced its senior management costs it would be able to save all the busses it is threatening to cut, plus the libraries. The YDNPA is the only local authority I know of in this area that is prepared to seriously cut down its management costs and the proposed restructuring will lose three senior well paid managers. Their jobs will go and this Authority is facing that an using that as a way of saving front line services. And the others should be doing the same thing.”
The public consultation on the YDNPA’s draft budget for 2011/12 lasts until March 10. There is a summary of changes on the YDNPA’s website, but the impact is likely to be even greater.
For instance it had been expected that the Authority’s Sustainable Development Fund would be used to assist at least 15 new projects each year but that has been scaled down to 10. The Authority is considering introducing charges for services such as the planning officers giving advice on applications. (One wonders how many hours planning officers spent on helping with the Scargill House application.)
The Authority will develop “paid for” leaflets at a price that will cover the production costs, and it is likely that visitor centres will depend upon the assistance of volunteers to remain open. In the report to the Finance and Resources committee it was stated: “It is very likely that necessity will require the Authority to use volunteers in areas of work where there are no longer employed staff, or where there are insufficient staff remaining to maintain a particular service with consequent risk to the jobs of those remaining staff.” And it warned that it would be unrealistic to expect to maintain the existing levels of satisfaction at visitor centres.
The YDNPA expects to make an additional £1.5K income from 2012/13 by removing the staff discount scheme in its retail section. In that year the retail service is expected to make a £96,660 profit. The Authority’s car parks will do even better – bringing in over £460,000 a year.