Jobs and services cut to balance council budget

The cuts will hit services that help children, domestic violence victims and those in poverty

A 4.99% tax rise, 40 job losses and almost £15m in spending cuts have been signed off by a Newcastle City Council.

The Labour-run authority had warned it needed to find £60m by 2027 to balance its books, including £14.4m over the next 12 months.

The 2024-25 budget voted through by the council includes plans for higher charges for wheelie bins.

It comes amid a row over delayed plans to slash the number of emergency beds available for the city’s homeless, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Crisis support services and a scheme providing basic items for people in poverty will also be hit by budget cut proposals signed off by councillors on Wednesday night.

The final budget proposals include:

• A council tax rise of the maximum allowed 4.99%, including a 2% precept towards the cost of adult social care, amounting to a yearly increase of between £63.85 and £191.55 depending on banding;

• Ceasing the council’s crisis support service, which has a £100,000 annual provision to help people suffering emergencies through circumstances including domestic violence and financial abuse;

• Cutting the budget of a supporting independence scheme, which provides access to basic items such as beds and cookers to people in poverty, from £457,000 to £100k;

• Removal of an Intensive Family Intervention Team which works with families whose children are at risk of being taken into care;

• Reducing a subsidy for the city’s school meal service by £537,000 and charging schools an extra 50p per meal;

• Higher charges for wheelie bins, garden waste collection, parking permits and car parking;

• The loss of 40 council jobs, including 20 currently vacant posts.

Council leader Nick Kemp said: “Sadly after 14 years of austerity there is no low hanging fruit left and many of the decisions we have taken to balance the budget have been painful."

Liberal Democrat opposition leader Colin Ferguson accused the council of “creating more challenges for the financially and socially vulnerable”.

Tracey Mitchell, leader of the Newcastle Independents group, hit out at the planned 7.7% rent hike for council house tenants which she said had left one couple in her ward “worried that they will have to move from the flat that they love because it is unaffordable”.