Hackney Labour Party

Working hard for you

Hackney Council Budget 2013/14

On February 27th, Labour councillors passed Hackney Council’s Budget for 2013/14.

This Budget has been set in the context of the deepest spending cuts to local government since the Second World War. Over £80m has been cut from the Council’s Budget over the last three years, with the Coalition Government’s cuts falling hardest on the most deprived areas in the country.

Hackney Labour’s approach has been to protect front line services and ensure better value for money, and we have been determined to do what we can to shield residents from the impact of these cuts.

Speaking at the Budget meeting, Jules Pipe, the Mayor of Hackney, highlighted how this represents an ideological attack by the Government on public services. He spoke about the challenges of providing services for less, but that Hackney Labour had protected libraries, leisure centres and vital services such as street cleaning. He stressed that the Budget in future years will be even more challenging with the Government having made it clear that local government will be subject to more cuts.

The Budget contains £1.1bn of spending on a wide range of services. Our priorities are to keep Hackney clean and safe; bring investment and jobs to the Borough and protect those residents in need. There has been no increase in Hackney’s council tax for the last eight years.

• £38m on Children’s social care, including child protection, supporting families, children who are permanently looked after by the Council
• £13.5 on youth services including our 5 youth centres
• £257m on education and schools
• £49.5m on the public realm which goes towards keeping Hackney’s streets clean, removing graffiti, fly tipping, recycling waste, cycle training and environmental enforcement
• £90m on Adult social care supporting vulnerable adults in the borough
• £21m on health and wellbeing services including our eight libraries, Hackney Museum, 56 parks and the Drug and Alcohol action team
• £7.3m on regeneration and planning
• £4.6m on safer communities including the gangs unit, domestic violence, CCTV and safety wardens

You can read the full Budget online here.