Finance chief Cllr Diarmaid Ward

ISLINGTON’S finance chief has mapped out £14million worth of council spending cuts for the upcoming Town Hall budget.

Diarmaid Ward said people could not expect Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government to have changed the picture in six months as he warned: “Local government is currently not funded properly … there is a lot more to do and we will continue talking to government about that”.

He told the Tribune yesterday (Thursday) that Islington had lost £300million in funding over the past 10 years, adding: “We’ve got a long long way to go. Are we out of the woods yet? No, of course not, but I don’t expect anyone to turn around 14 years of Tory austerity in a few months.”

Cuts include removing £100,000 worth of grants to voluntary sector nurseries and play groups over the next five years, and saving a further £240,000 by reviewing spending on commissioned youth services.

Asked whether cutting funding to charities, youth clubs and childcare was in line with council leader Una O’Halloran’s commitment to placing young people at the forefront of her priorities, Cllr Ward said: “It’s about making sensible savings so we can continue to work with those organisations. The voluntary sector right across London is in a dire state. We’re going to continue to work with it. It’s all about making sensible efficiencies so we can deliver those services, and deliver those services in the most efficient way.”

He added: “I see where the tension is, but that’s the reason why it’s so important that we deliver those services in the best way possible, in the most efficient way possible. Get the most help to the biggest number of people.”

Dave Hodgkinson, the council’s director of resources, said: “We don’t provide services where there’s no demand for it. If in that situation, you obviously have to try and make efficiencies otherwise that would not be value for money and a very bad use of public money.”

Mr Hodgkinson added that an additional government grant would be able to make up for some of the cuts to children and youth services.

The council also plan to save £150,000 by “scaling back the council’s investment in festive lighting in the borough”, but Cllr Ward assured residents that this would not mean the end of Islington’s Christmas decorations.

“The operative word is “scaling back,” he said. “There are going to be Christmas lights, but we just have to do it in the most efficient way possible.”

Cllr Ward added that the council was considering having fewer Christmas lights, changing their locations, or “bringing in the private sector” to fund them.

Opposition councillors called the budget plans a “betrayal” of Islington Labour’s “promise that things would get better with a Labour government”.

A joint statement by Green and independent councillors said: “It’s crystal clear that for anyone opposed to austerity, they will have to look elsewhere from Labour,” adding: “Cuts to youth services. Nurseries. Park services. Even the Christmas lights. For years our council has been chronically underfunded, and the new Labour government has not come to the rescue.

“Indeed, they’ve even raised taxes on the council, not covering the cost of increased National Insurance contributions.”

The budget includes a prediction that the government will only grant local government £2.92million of the extra £4.31million cost of new NI Contributions.

But Cllr Ward said they would not be certain of exactly how much the government would grant them until February.