In an occasionally fractious meeting where some used the opportunity to get a political point in before the May council election, those in attendance debated the issues surrounding the budget, particularly proposed cuts to services.
In total, £48,711,202 of savings have been identified.
Councillors voted by 39 to 35 to approve the budget, with 3 abstaining.
During the meeting, the deputy leader of Cornwall Council, Cllr David Harris criticised the government for the removal of a rural-focused grant and its replacement with one for urban areas, the latest in recent criticism of central government by the authority’s leadership.
He laid the blame on the situation on Rachel Reeves, the chancellor of the exchequer for ‘broken promises on reimbursement of councils for the increase in national insurance.’
Several councillors criticised the leadership for their reliance on increasing council tax, with Cllr German saying they treated the public ‘like a cash machine’.
Cllr Leigh Frost, the leader of the Liberal Democrat group leader said that the budget will see cuts to climate action, the fire service, street cleaning, home maintenance, family support workers and other things, adding that at the same time the council had ‘wasted’ money on capital programmes, an ‘unwanted’ mayoral deal, privatisation of Cornwall Airport Newquay and the redevelopment of Pydar in Truro.
With the budget’s approval, it now means that some of the previously trailed cuts and charges will now take place, including the removal of the two to three hour tariff in car parks, which is proposed to increase income to the council by £639,000 in the coming financial year.
Meanwhile, the council forecast that the application of charges to presently free car parks, with consideration to transferring those car parks to Cormac within the proposal will bring in an additional £300,000.
The reduction in staff cost, by not filling vacant posts and potential redundancies in customer facing roles could bring another £330,298 in savings while a reduction in the amount spent on postage could bring in another £256,446.
Cuts involving six deleted vacancies from frontline family workers and youth worker roles will save a further £249,082 while a proposal to remove self-referral counselling to employees, or family will save a further £150,000.
A proposal to charge parking charges for the Park and Ride in Truro, combined with the lease or disposal of the buildings at Tregurra and Langarth to close the contract gap on the current service could bring in another £200,000.
Among the largest ‘savings’, the council budget hopes to save £1,300,000 is believed to be saved by developing two three bed properties to be used as registered children’s homes as opposed to using independent providers.
A further million could be saved from the ending of using agency social worker contracts.
Existing planned cuts will bring in a further £774,250 of savings.
Recap the debate by visiting our live blog here: Cornwall Council to decide budget amid tax increases and cuts proposed