Salford’s Mayor has warned that the city is facing a difficult future as the council tries to deal with numerous cuts from the government. Councillors in Salford will vote tomorrow on a plan to find £5.9 million in savings to set its budget, a figure which is set rise again over the next few years. The situation has been made worse by cuts to funding such as the services grant and household support fund. A plan to balance the books at Salford council includes a 5 percent council tax hike, and an uplift to fees and services charged by the council to residents for things such as pest control, parking, and bin replacements. The council tax increase is made up of a 2.99pc increase in core council tax and 2 pc for the adult social care precept. The Mayor of Salford Paul Dennett said the government is effectively “stuffing money” into richer parts of the country at the expense of poorer areas. Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service about setting the budget, Mr Dennett said: “It’s been hard and I’m sat here today very worried about the future. “What’s happening this year is they’re stuffing money into the wealthier parts of the country. This is a settlement to look after the wealthy councils at the expense of the poorer ones. It’s not redistributive and it’s highly regressive.” He added: “They’ve not linked the revenue support grant calculations with the latest population data, and as a local authority that’s been growing significantly with 5.4 percent growth since 2011 – that’s 36,000 more people. “The fact that government aren’t linking it to real time population growth means that Salford is disproportionately impacted compared to other local authorities across the country that aren’t seeing that population growth.” Mr Dennett highlighted a number of other issues, including the end of negative RSG – a scheme which saw wealthier councils contribute to a central pot and that would be redistributed to the poorer councils. He also raised concerns about the local government finance settlement offering money to rural councils for sparsity, while at the same time putting money into the rural services delivery grant -“to benefit local authorities that probably don’t have poverty and inequality as the city of Salford.” The Mayor said that £245 million has been cut from the council’s budget in total since 2010/11. Salford’s council tax increase will mean a Band D households will pay an extra £110.93 per year, although single households pay 25 percent less. But Mr Dennett ruled out cuts to bin collections, libraries, or leisure centres. The budget will debated by councillors at a meeting at Salford Civic Centre tomorrow. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities was contacted for comment.
