Bucks County Council agrees £9.2m cuts

5 August 2010, 16:00 | Updated: 5 August 2010, 16:51

Buckinghamshire County Council has backed proposals to save £9.2 million.

At a meeting today, members agreed to cuts within this year's budget.

£5.4 million pounds of the savings are coming from within Children and Young People's Services. They include a 25% drop in the amount of funding for domestic violence work, meaning there'll be less preventative work carried out with women and children at risk of abuse.

There will also be less money paid to the Connexions service, meaning a reduction in careers advice in schools.

Another cut comes within the Adults and Family Wellbeing Service, where there will be less money spent on buying new library books.

The Council says it has had to make the cuts because of a reduced amount of money from the government and because some sections of its work - like the Safeguarding Children Department - have cost more money to run than was originally anticipated.

Today's cuts come on top of another £52 million, which the council needs to save over the next four years.

Council Leader David Shakespeare said:

"The bottom line is that if we fail in our duty to deal with this emerging situation now, we would simply be guaranteeing having to make bigger and deeper cuts to public services because of the delay.

"While others may shy away from the difficult decision, we have to take responsibility for dealing with the situation now, and however regrettable some of these reductions may be, we have to take decisive action on behalf of our taxpayers."]

Mr Shakespeare told Heart some positions at the council will go because of the cuts:

"I think there will be around 50 posts that will be no longer needed, but many of the people in those posts will be able to find other jobs within the County Council where there are vacancies at the present time."

At the same meeting today, it was agreed that £1.2 million will be allocated to ease some of the pressure in Children's Safeguarding, and a further £800,000 is going to cover pressure within the Adults and Family Wellbeing Portfolio. The money's coming from the County Council's contingency funds - which are kept in case unexpected issues arise during the year.