Labour councillor Flora Williamson

THERE will be “very little impact” on front-line services, the Town Hall’s finance chief has said, as she mapped out £8million worth of “back end” cuts and touted a new £5million pot for residents in the annual budget.

Councillor Flora Williamson told the Tribune that the Labour government had allowed the council to start turning around the situation after 14 years of Tory austerity, and that there were “some real positives”.

“Have you ever seen a budget with so few proposals?”, Cllr Williamson said, “almost all of which are back-end efficiencies or savings or looking at services which aren’t necessarily delivering the outcomes that we want?”

Some £2.5million will be saved through a “redesign” of the Safeguarding and Family Support, and Bright Start programmes, which may include a “potentially really tiny amount” of redundancies, said the finance chief.

But cuts to staff will not impact the service delivered, she promised, adding: “I’m confident we will be able to deliver front-line services, particularly those services that matter most to parents and children, and that have the most impact and best outcomes.”

Meanwhile, a £25,000 cut to the children’s holiday programme will be filled through a government grant, Cllr Williamson assured residents.

Green leader Cllr Benali Hamdache

The fair-funding formula has been a source of much debate over the past months as the government redrew proposals on deciding how much money was given to each local authority.

Under the current agreement, Islington will benefit from an increase in government funding next year, but uncertainty about future arrange­ments may leave them with a multi-million-pound black hole in three or four years’ time.

The finance chief, however, said this was not a cause for concern, as there were “so many factors” which could change before then.

She added that there was an assurance of a minimum amount of money, and that later negotiations would hopefully see that increase.

Cllr Williamson said the new multi-year government settlements had given the council the “quite revolutionary” ability to plan ahead

“For the first time in over a decade we actually know what we’re going to get not just this year, but the year after and the year after that,” she said.

Criticism was quick to come from Benali Hamdache, leader of the Green Party opposition, who told the Tribune: “The fair-funding review was meant to deliver a fair settlement for local council funding. It’s in the name.

It’s election year budget time at the Town Hall

“But Islington Council is left with a £22m budget hole leading up to 2029. How is this the change Labour promised at the general election? It’s just more Tory economics.”

He added that his party was “deeply concerned” about reductions in funding for children and young people, and “dramatic cuts” to backroom functions like finance, human resources and legal, “as well as the cancellation of more housing schemes”.

The budget includes a £6million reduction in funding for new-build schemes. Labour councillors have argued that their inability to fulfil their manifesto pledge of building 750 new homes is due to sky-rocketing building costs which they can no longer afford.

Cllr Williamson said that new build, however, remained a priority but the council was looking to increase the council housing stock through their successful buy-back programme; £58million has been allocated to spend on this.

“It’s far cheaper for us to buy back a property than it is to build them,” she said, “so we’re looking at how we can achieve the same goals but doing it slightly differently, whilst still having really good financial management.”

Other promises includes developing 1.5 hectares of additional green space – enough to cover the Arsenal Emirates Stadium five times. It was unclear how and where this would be achieved, but there was a suggestion that there would be more planters.

The £5million fund, meanwhile, will be spent on “things residents can see, touch, point to”, although Cllr Williamson could not point to exactly what these would be.