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3. Councils slice jobs fund cash

Sarah Townsend, Regeneration & Renewal, 31 August 2010

A group of local authorities have cut substantially more from their allocations of a government fund to tackle worklessness than the reductions recommended to them by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG), Regeneration & Renewal can reveal.

As part of the Government’s recent £1.2 billion of cuts to local authority budgets, the DCLG recommended how the savings should be distributed across programmes such as the Working Neighbourhoods Fund (WNF).

Local authorities were free to choose how a proportion of cuts to the area-based grant, which includes WNF, could be implemented.

Research by Regeneration & Renewal into the amount of money councils were advised to cut from their WNF budgets and the actual reductions they made shows that Birmingham City Council cut its £70 million budget by £7 million – £3 million more than was recommended.

Bolton Council, meanwhile, was advised to cut its £7 million budget by £694,000, to leave £6.4 million, but cut £2.2 million, leaving £4.8 million in the pot. Burnley Borough Council cut its £2.1 million budget by £278,000, compared with the DCLG’s recommendation of £264,000. Hartlepool Borough Council was advised to cut its £5.5 million budget by £550,000, but trimmed £700,000, and Walsall Council cut £842,000, not the recommended £656,000.

Matthew Jackson, head of research at think-tank the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, said: “The statistics are worrying, given that these are localities that have some of the highest levels of worklessness in England. The cuts will clearly lead to cuts in projects for those furthest from the labour market.”

A spokeswoman for Bolton Council said: “All area-based grant activities were reviewed and non-statutory activities, such as WNF, that could be scaled back or discontinued were identified as potential savings.”

But Blackburn with Darwen, Great Yarmouth and Pendle borough councils all made smaller WNF cuts than advised. A number of councils, including the London Borough of Hackney, Manchester City Council and Gateshead Council, said they had made the recommended reductions.

Available on the Regeneration and Renewal website here.