5000 East Lancs public-sector jobs under threat in spending review

Five thousand public-sector job losses were forecast across the county, town halls will have their budgets slashed, and there were warnings of an affordable housing crisis with no money to replace East Lancashire’s crumbling stock.

Bosses are still digesting the detail of Chancellor George Osborne’s spending review, but the prospects of the £50million Pennine Reach bus lane look remote after 45 per cent cuts to Whitehall’s capital projects budget.

And hopes of a new prison being built in the area – earmarked under the previous Justice Minister MP Jack Straw – have disappeared after plans for a 1,500-space unit have disappeared.

Mr Osborne told MPs the cuts were ‘fair’, insisting: “It is a hard road, but it leads to a better future.”

But Mr Straw said: “This is likely to make a difficult situation even worse.”

There were also warnings East Lancashire’s 14,000-strong waiting list for social housing would increase because of a 60 per cent cut to the budget used to build affordable homes.

Public services union Unison said it expected to see 5,000 public-sector jobs lost over four years, branding the cuts ‘vandalism’.

An extra £7billion was removed from the welfare budget, leading Mr Osborne to claim he had brought the cuts within Labour’s pre-election plans.

Council budgets

• 28per cent cut to council funding over four years
• No detail on East Lancashire’s major capital projects
• Government support to freeze council tax

Lancashire County Council will have to go even further than the £113million it forecast earlier this year.

As much as £35million extra may now need to be found over four years.

Lancashire County Council leader Geoff Driver said he hoped to protect front-line services but added: “This will have a major impact on the county council and the services we provide.”

Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council leader Kate Hollern said it would become ‘increasingly difficult’ to make ends meet.

Burnley Borough Council leader Charlie Briggs said he was ‘disappointed’ by the size of the grant cut.

But he added: “UK plc has a massive problem in the shape of the national debt, a problem that has to be tackled and which the Government is facing up to.”

East Lancashire councils are more dependent on Government support than other areas because of the high proportion of Band A houses, meaning less money comes from council tax.

Public sector jobs

• 490,000 public-sector jobs to go across the country, according to government estimates.
• Unions forecast 5,000 of these would hit Lancashire
• The government hopes the private sector will grow, creating jobs to fill the gap

Unison rep Tim Ellis was scathing about the impact of the cuts.

He said: “It is vandalism, that is how I would characterise it.

"Five thousand public sector jobs in East Lancashire.

"That is without the knock-on effect on the private sector.”

However, Martin Wright, chief executive of the Nelson-based North West Aerospace Alliance, was more sceptical.

He said: “There is comparatively little in this statement to encourage confidence that this will be guaranteed.

“From a regional industry point of view, there are sparse positive offerings in the face of four difficult years."

Benefits

• One year limit enforced for people who claim Employment Support Allowance, the successor to incapacity benefit, with around 1million people affected, although disabled and ‘those with lowest incomes’ will be protected
• Cuts worth £490million, or 10 per cent, to Council Tax Benefit
• Housing benefit capped at £500 for families or £350 for single adults

East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce chief executive Mike Damms backed the new benefit measures – and the companies who help people back to work.

He said: “It is a big challenge but this is clearly a balance away from welfare and back to work.

“I personally think we have developed a system that lets people stay out of work far too easily.

“It does not make any sense that we have had more people on incapacity benefit in recent years despite improvements in education, general health and life expectancy.”

Housing

• 60 per cent cut to the social housing budget
• Higher rents to cover the shortfall
• Fixed-period tenancies, assessed at regular intervals

The cut to the affordable housing budget will mean less new affordable houses are built, according to Twin Valley Homes executive director Kevin Ruth.

His organisation wants to build 1,000 homes in Blackburn alone over the next four years, but this is now in doubt.

Rents will rise for new tenants, increasing typical East Lancashire monthly rates from £75 to £130.

This will lead to people paying significantly more for their homes than neighbours.

Coupled with the likely loss of Housing Market Renewal funds, there are real concerns over quality affordable housing in East Lancashire.

Mr Ruth said: “We can’t build houses to the standards we want if the government won’t subsidise it.”

Pensions

• The state pension age for both men and women will rise to 66 gradually from December 2018 to April 2020
• Further increases to the retirement age could follow
• Temporary increases to Cold Weather Payments made permanent, so eligible households get £25 for each week of cold weather

The Government said raising the retirement age was essential to tackle the pension timebomb.

But an East Lancashire union official attacked the move, saying it would skew the labour market and deprive younger people of job opportunities.

Cathy Rudderforth, an East Lancashire officer for the Unite union, said: “I don’t believe that this will help the economy in any way.

“I have got a son who is 24 and the job he went for had another 96 applicants. If an older person is staying in the job that is putting a younger person on Jobseekers’ Allowance.

“All this will do is lead to older people keeping the jobs and keeping them out of reach of young people.”

Mrs Rudderforth said ‘there is a point you reach’ when older people become less productive and can no longer justify being in the labour market.

Schools

• Schools will see an increase in funding for the next four years
• Capital spending will be cut by 60 per cent by 2014, including many Building Schools for the Future schemes scrapped
• £15.8billion spent on refurbishing other schools

KEN Cridland, secretary of Lancashire NUT, backed the investment in schools but expressed concern about impending cuts to councils.

NHS

• The NHS budget has escaped cuts and will will rise by 0.1% a year
• Overall health spending will rise from £104 billion this year to £114 billion by the end of the next four years
• Social care will receive an extra £1 billion a year from NHS funds

Police

• Six per cent budget cut to the Home Office
• 20 per cent slashed from policing bill
• 3,000 fewer prison places and plans scrapped for a 1,500-space prison

Lancashire Police refused to comment on the implications of the budget cuts, saying it would wait until receiving its individual settlement later this year.

But the cuts are in line with the forecast that led Chief Constable Steve Finnigan to warn of 1,000 job losses earlier this month.

Police

• Bleak outlook for East Lancashire’s £50million bus lane
• Train fares to rise, with the cap on increases lifted to three per cent plus inflation
• Electrification of railway line between Manchester and Preston

Rossendale and Darwen MP Jake Berry said: “It’s unlikely Pennine Reach will be funded, but I don’t think many people will be sad to see the back of it.”

Click on the links below for more details on the spending cuts.