Hastings town hall

Hastings Grant Cut Largest In South East

Hastings Borough Council is to receive the largest reduction in government funding next year of any council in the South East. – This is the key implication for Hastings from this week’’s Local Government Finance Statement, according to a statement by Kevin Boorman, the Council’s  Head of Communications & Marketing.

The government’’s chosen measure of revenue spending power will decline, on average, by 1.7% for local councils. The reduction next year for Hastings is over 13%.  If the council can show it is meeting the government’’s efficiency criteria, it may be eligible for a special new ‘Efficiency Support Grant’ which would reduce that cut to 8.8% – still many times more than that facing other councils.

Council leader Cllr Jeremy Birch  explained:

“This is certainly close to our worst case scenario in terms of budget planning. Overall we have experienced a 50% reduction in government finance to run the council since 2010.  I obviously hope our record will make us eligible for the new efficiency grant. After all we have restructured the council, including dispensing with the post of chief executive, we have signed a joint waste contract with other East Sussex councils and a joint parks and gardens contract, and the two will save us £1 million a year.

But even with that grant we will not be able to bridge the financial gap by efficiencies. Fees and charges are having to be looked at and every council service is being examined – –  can we afford to run them at their current level or even can we afford to run them at all? Inevitably this will mean council job losses and inevitably local people will experience disagreeable changes to services they use.””

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