Islington Council has vowed that its frontline services are “safe” under its latest budget plans that propose stripping millions from the council’s back office.
By Josef Steen, Local Democracy Reporter
Islington Council has vowed that its frontline services are “safe” under its latest budget plans that propose stripping millions from the council’s back office.
The Labour-run North London borough has put forward a balanced budget for the coming year, claiming this will deliver “value for money” for residents without dipping into its savings pot for the next three years.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), Islington’s Executive Member for Finance and Performance, Flora Williamson, said the council was in a “healthy place” and was “still spending more per child than any other local authority in London” as she insisted no universal services were facing cuts.
But £2.7m is set to be saved from children’s services that the council is not legally obliged to offer, including by drawing down £700,000 from Islington’s safeguarding and family support offer through a service “redesign”.
The council also plans to reduce its new homes target and overall investment as it cancels or changes developments, admitting that housebuilding will slow due to construction costs. Meanwhile, the local authority has set aside £59m to buy back ex-council homes.
Reports show the council is heading for a £5m underspend at the same time funding from the Government will increase by 1% overall – though this will fall marginally over the ensuing two years. However, the council expects costs to swell by roughly 10%, “driving the need [for] savings and efficiencies” to balance the books.
These will largely fall on the back office, namely legal, HR and finance teams through voluntary redundancies but also “workforce control” where vacant posts are deleted instead of filled.
When asked how the council was taking action to prevent any potential knock-on effect on service quality, Cllr Williamson said it would invest in “good technology” to automate processes (though not “necessarily” AI) and “allow systems to talk to each other”, eliminating the need for “so many staff to keep processes going.”
The budget report flags the risk that reducing staff “may impact service delivery.”
‘Tory economics’
Speaking to the LDRS, opposition leader Benali Hamdache (Green) slammed the “dramatic cuts to staff in important backroom functions” and the loss of funding for new housing and children’s services. He likened the Labour-run council’s plans to “Tory economics”.
Responding, Cllr Williamson said: “That sounds like an utter, utter joke to me. The amount of investments we’ve got going in, spending £100m on building new council homes – the single thing that can absolutely revolutionise somebody’s life”.
The budget also contains plans for an extra £5m fund for “one-off” investments that will make a “tangible difference” to residents, Cllr Williamson said. It is not yet clear how the money will be spent, but she said to expect announcements in the coming “weeks and months” as the council hears more from residents.
Meanwhile, London’s second-most densely populated borough will have a total of 1.5 hectares of new green space under the plans – “enough to cover Arsenal’s Emirates stadium more than five times”, she said.
Other investments include a £325m cash injection for repairs to the borough’s housing stock. The finance chief said the government’s Spending Review made this possible by letting councils borrow money against future income.
The budget reports notes that Islington is just above the “absolute minimum” in its reserves, leaving it significantly below the average London council. Islington’s chief financial officer noted “prudent” financial planning but warned that these coffers were not enough given the “scale and complexity” of risks it faces.
Like many other councils in England, there remains uncertainty about a funding ‘cliff-edge’ when the multi-year settlement expires in 2029.
