Brent Council and the CSR: The Council Budget

Brent Council's budget is cut by 7.1% every year for the next four years in the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR). That is a total of about £65 million, the worst spending settlement for decades. At the moment, we still don't have precise figures but we can estimate headline numbers.

It looks like cuts in every department, including across environment and neighbourhood services. Capital spend in the Council as a whole goes down by about £66 million (a 45% cut). Transport spending, which is heavily reliant on TfL, is likely to see severe reductions. Non-statutory spending is likely to be hardest hit.

We are also likely to be forced to look again at ways to limit demand, although the effects of recession are likely to see increasing need in terms of homelessness, family breakdown and so on.

What is so depressing is that I suspect that this suffering is not only unecessary, but actively damaging. By taking an Irish style approach of cutting as much as possible as fast as possible, The Con Dem government is likely to damage economic growth and make the deficit worse.