Ken Maddock's full address on county council cuts

He was addressing a meeting of the full council which was due to vote on the latest round of austerity measures.

Here is his speech in full: Tony Blair said: “Financial prudence is the essential forerunner of social justice.”

Today we are recreating financial prudence so that we will be able to restore social justice.

There are great pressures on us today - great financial pressures.

The landscape is very complex but let me remind you of the three main difficulties.

Firstly our biggest source of income is central government. They too are under very severe pressures.

We recognised from the start therefore that their revenue settlement to us would be harsh.

In the event it was even more harsh than we had expected. Our grant has been cut by £27 million for this coming year alone.

Secondly Somerset is currently borrowing more than £350 million – and projected to grow to £410m if we took no action.

The debts must be serviced. The cost of repaying those debts is £36 million a year - that’s equivalent to £100,000 a day. And a sixteen year old leaving school today in Somerset will be 63 years old by the time the debts are paid off.

And thirdly so-called demographic pressures are costing us vastly more in terms of social care, child protection, children with learning disabilities and so on.

We need to spend millions of pounds more - just to stand still. Not to improve services, not to make the lives of our most vulnerable people better, not to help more people – but millions of pounds more just to provide what we do now.

It is a major challenge for our staff and for our budgets.

So three huge pressures, and any one of these pressures would be a serious challenge. But coming as they do all at once it is a mammoth task indeed which faces us today.

We have less money. We have big debts. And we have more demands on our services. Something has to give.

We cannot go on living beyond our means - maxing out our credit card for ever. Sooner or later we have to pay the price for our reckless past.

There are those who say that things are not as bad as we are making out. They try to create a false image of what we are doing, that we are imposing cuts which are not necessary because it somehow gives us pleasure to do so.

Some Somerset MPs even think they know better than our independent – and I stress that, politically independent – local government financial officers and suggest we had a good settlement.

These expert officers tell it like it is, and it is before you today in black and white in our budget: £34m savings needed for next year alone – no amount of political posturing can disguise that – a huge saving needed that will have a big impact on our residents.

As the Prime Minister David Cameron said at PMQs: “If you start from a position of deficit denial, you will never win the trust of the people”. (2 February 2011).

And don’t just take the word of a Conservative for it. Listen to what Liberal Democrats are saying… “…the need for savage cuts” (Nick Clegg, Leader Lib Dems, Deputy PM, Lib Dem Spring conference 2010.

“I accept that the funding settlement for Local Authorities is challenging” (Norman Baker, Lib Dem Local Transport Minister, Public Finance magazine, 3 February 2011).

“…88 Liberal Democrat council chiefs have written to The Times today warning that services for the most vulnerable will have to be cut. The 17 local authority leaders and 71 local party heads say that the spending reductions are too big and are being implemented too quickly. (The letter says)

“These cuts will have an undoubted impact on all frontline council services, including care services to the vulnerable”. (The Times, 10 Feb 2011).

Among the signatories to the letter were: Tim Carroll – Leader, South Somerset District Council, and Ross Henley – Group leader,

target="_blank">Taunton Deane Borough Council.

And for a non-party political opinion listen to the Chief Executive of the Local Government Association, John Ransford writing in his Local Government Finance Report of 31 January 2011.

“Today’s announcement confirms what councils already knew. Local government will have to cover a funding shortfall of around £6.5 billion in the next financial year, with some councils facing more than a 16% reduction in the amount of money they receive from the Government. It is the toughest settlement in living memory.”

So there was a problem and we had to deal with it. What did we do about it?

As Albert Einstein said: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Our policies are now based on reality, not on naïveté or self delusion or by ducking the issue.

So there will be: No more reckless spending. No more excessive tax increases. No more irresponsible borrowing.

They were precisely the things which got us into this mess in the first place. We could not go on like that. We have had to cut our coat according to our cloth. Take a look at how we started.

We have reduced the number of Directors by 40% and senior management as a whole by 15%: We have cut the size of the Cabinet by a third - we have had a recruitment freeze for the past year and half, saving nearly £2 million - and many more back office savings and improvements are in hand which will reap further dividends.

But this is not enough.

So last November we approved plans to cut future spending by £43m over three years. More immediately, we needed to cut £34m from our budgets for the year ahead.

That is what today is all about, and that is why it is important that all the public who are here today or listening to this need to understand the context of today’s decisions.

We have heard passionate appeals for libraries, for the arts and for recycling centres along with many other areas.

We have listened to you throughout the budget setting programme and in some areas we have been able to adapt and be flexible.

In other areas, there is just nothing we can do. £34m in savings for next year alone – this is hugely challenging.

I deeply regret the anxiety and concern that this is causing to many people.

I’d like to thank all those who took part in what I believe was the most comprehensive consultation exercise ever carried out by this council with many thousands of feedback forms in Your Somerset newspaper and online giving us a tremendous insight into what support libraries enjoy in Somerset.

We have listened and we have been flexible. But the savings have to be delivered. We have no choice in that.

So we have left no stone unturned in trying to spread the impact as fairly as we possibly can, while protecting the most vulnerable.

We know, we all know in our heart, that this is the right thing to do.

The phrase ‘we are all in this together’ has been much used lately. And of course we will all feel some impact from these painful but necessary financial cutbacks, so we are indeed ‘all in this together‘.

And I believe that this means that together we can all help with the solution.

So I say this to the people of Somerset today: If there is a service that we can no longer afford to provide, but which local people really value, then we will help local people pick it up and run it for themselves, if that is what they want.

If there is a council service which the people presently operating the service for the council feel they can run better or more cheaply outside the council, then talk to us about a management buy-out or new service agreement.

And if any member of the public sees the council wasting money, tell me and I will do my best to eradicate it.

Call it ‘Big Society’, call it ‘all in this together’, call it reinventing the neighbourhood, I don’t mind what you call it.

But the plain fact is we have to find a positive way forward together. And there are positives on the horizon. Let me conclude by looking forward to some of those positives.

In the past week in Taunton we have seen Government approval for a £21m new relief road for Taunton that will free up development land that could provide 4,000 jobs and 1,000 new homes.

We are at the centre of the EDF proposals for a new reactor at Hinkley Point – a proposal that we now know could lead to 5600 local jobs for local people over the construction period and put Somerset at the heart of the nuclear power industry.

And finally I’d like to highlight a real boost for young people’s prospects with this council and its partners’ involvement in a scheme called 100 in 100. This was an ambitious aim to find 100 apprenticeships in Somerset in 100 days.

I’m delighted to report that after just five weeks the total number of apprentices has reached 153 – another sign that Somerset’s economy is showing signs of recovery.

Three fantastic prospects to celebrate after a year that has tested us in so many ways. All three of these exciting schemes have a common theme – to boost the local economy and bring new jobs to Somerset.

It is worth restating three major priorities as we look into the future:

– protecting the vulnerable wherever we can;

- raising standards in our classrooms;

- and building on the good work already underway to bring more jobs and better prospects to our local economy.

But to achieve any of this, we need a future built on a sounder footing.

A future with new jobs and prospects for a better life.

Caring for the weakest and encouraging the strongest. It will take time and it will be hard work. But together we can do this.

We have it in our power today to make a fresh start - a new beginning - doing together what we all know we can do - making Somerset what it can be.

We can make Somerset stronger again tomorrow by facing up to reality today - always remembering that financial prudence is the essential predecessor to social justice.

So today we are getting through the tough times together, looking forward with a commitment to create a Somerset that welcomes and encourages innovation and investment.

New jobs, new ideas, new focus on working together to bring prosperity that will benefit us all.

The worst years are behind us, but by working together we can make the years ahead vibrant, dynamic and prosperous.