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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Older people's homes and day centres are facing mass closures as Haringey Council announces the largest funding cuts in its history.

Haringey has set out in stark detail the scale of closures facing the borough as £87 million is wiped from budgets over the next three years.

Four older people's homes providing residential care for pensioners will be closed across the borough and seven drop-in and day centres providing vital social contact and support for older people will also be shut, along with a mental health crisis unit and a mental health day care centre.

Jobs are set to go at libraries and Tottenham's Bruce Castle Museum and some council managers will be axed saving £2.5 million alone.

At the other end of the scale, free tea and coffee vending machines in council offices will be scrapped, saving £50,000 annually, and allotment fees will rise by £9 per plot.

The council released detailed plans for more than £28 million of savings between 2011 and 2014 on Friday (December 17).

But that is less than a third of the cuts needed to balance a £87 million black hole in the budget over the next three years. Further measures will be announced in the New Year.

The Government is making Haringey find more than half of the savings - £46 million - in the next year alone, with further cuts of around £20 million in each of the following two years.

Labour Councillor Joe Goldberg, cabinet member for finance and sustainability, said: "The overwhelming speed and scale of the Government’s cuts have left us with little room for manoeuvre – we have to make some incredibly tough decisions and we have to make them very quickly or they won’t have a great enough impact on next year’s spending.

The council's cabinet will consider the first wave of cuts at a meeting tonight (Tuesday, December 21) before they are put out for consultation.

The council says it will prioritise back office efficiency and explore sharing services to prioritise cash for those most in need, but services for older people are revealed as the hardest hit in the first wave of cuts.

* Cranwood Older People’s Home in Muswell Hill and Broadwater Lodge Older People’s Home in Tottenham will both be closed saving £1.1 million.

* Red House Residential Care Home in South Tottenham, which provides care for dementia patients and the frail, will close saving £714,000.

* Whitehall Residential Home in Tottenham, for people with learning difficulties, will close saving £237,000.

* Four drop-in centres for older people will close saving £234,000 - Abyssinia Court in Crouch End, Willoughby Road in Hornsey, The Drop-in Centre at The Irish Centre in Tottenham, and Woodside House in Wood Green.

* The Haven Day Centre in Tottenham, for people with physical disability and sensory impairment, to close, and The Grange Day Centre in White Hart Lane, Tottenham, to merge with The Haynes Day Centre in Crouch End, saving £234,000.

* Woodside Day Centre in Wood Green, used by 45 vulnerable older people, will close saving £149,000.

* Jacksons Lane Luncheon Club will lose £10,000 for a part time staff member, leaving its future unclear.

The closures will result in the complete loss of day care services for older people across the borough, except for dementia sufferers, and the council’s in-house home care service, offering personal care to vulnerable adults, will also cease saving £1.06 million.

Other services across the council facing cut backs include:

* Some council managers axed, saving £2.5 million.

* Connexions careers advice service for vulnerable young people reduced by 75 per cent saving £1.64 million.

* Staff cuts at libraries and Bruce Castle Museum saving £384,000.

* Reduced response to noise complaints, including stopping out-of-hours response service, saving £180,000.

* Cutbacks in mobile phone use by council staff saving £150,000.

* Review of translation services saving £124,000.

* No free tea and coffee in council vending machines saving £50,000.

* Allotment charges to rise by £9 a year, earning an extra £22,000.

More than 1,000 jobs are at risk and redunancy costs are likely to cost the council in the region of £10-20 million.

Consultation has begun with staff likely to be affected and a voluntary redundancy scheme has been set up.

Further savings plans are being drawn up and will be revealed in January and a balanced budget for 2011-2012 must be agreed by the Full Council in February.

Tags for Forum Posts: public spending cuts

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Typical of this council to pick the sector of the community least able to fight for their rights. No doubt a ploy to get us focusing on the "evil coalition" instead of our wasteful council who could have cut other things. Like executives wages. Or cost of website. or Haringey People etc etc. And where exactly are they going to dump all these old, physically and/or mentally frail human beings? In the street? Many will no longer have their own homes - even if they were capable of caring for themselves, which they are not. Many will not have family willing or able to take them in and be full time carers. So what do the council propose doing with them? Perhaps they will come as part and parcel of the properties when they are sold to property developers, like sitting tenants?

 

The council will presumably have a statutory obligation to rehouse them all in expensive privately run care homes. This is an utter disgrace:kicking elderly people out of places where they will have made relationships and feel at home into the unknown.

Hugh: what is the source of this information? It doesn't quite match up with what's on the council's news page at the moment.

 

Regardless, it contains a mixture of some things that should have been cut long ago, some things that should not be cut before other cuts (not listed) have been made and other cuts that should never be made (care for the elderly).

 

What about the over-bloated salaries? The Director of "Urban" (?) Environment recently left Haringey's paltry pay of between £124,238 to £141,797 (salary scale COB3), to become chief executive at Sutton (c. £200 K?). What a lovely racket they've organised for themselves!

 

(The pension pots for these characters must be quite remarkable ... and the aggregate deficit in the local government pension fund was recently estimated at £100,000,000,000. How much longer can this go on?)

 

Where is the inflated public relations budget in the above list?

Where is Haranguingyou People magazine?

The council will now show in the clearest way possible where its priorities lie.

 

 

 

HFRA

Absolutely apalling.

 

What is meant by 'put out for consultation'?

I guess it means that residents will have the chance to comment, but I'm not clear just what influence that consultation will have.

It's reassuring that the "free" tea and coffee is being scrapped, saving £50 K.

 

Meanwhile, there seems to be a big chunk of spending that looks to be untouchable. The public were never invited to select any cuts amongst that group. Below are my best estimates of annual cash for the Haringey Top 100, averages based on mid-points for up-to-date salary ranges (FoI data).

 

Is it really necessary to pay salaries of these sizes, or in some cases, at all?

 

Director of The Children & Young People Special Scale £210,000
Chief Executive CEX £192,000
Director of Corporate Resources COB4 £147,000
Director of Urban Environment COB3 £133,000
Director of Adult, Culture & Community COB3 £133,000
Deputy Director  Children & Families COB2 £118,000
Assistant Chief Executive (People & OD) SM7 £104,000
Asst Director, Planning, Regen & Economy SM7 £104,000
Head of Legal Services SM7 £104,000
Head of Corporate Finance SM6 £94,000
Deputy Director SM6 £94,000
Assistant Director - S & CHS SM6 £94,000
Deputy Director Children's Networks SM6 £94,000
Asst Director -  Adults & Older People SM6 £94,000
Assist.Director Commissioning & Strategy SM6 £94,000
Head of Communication & Consultation SM5 £87,000
Head of Information Technology SM5 £87,000
Head of Corporate Property Services SM5 £87,000
Transformation Stream Lead SM5 £87,000
Head of  Safer & Stronger Communities SM5 £87,000
Assistant Director SM5 £87,000
Head of Procurement SM4 £80,000
Head of Haringey Forward SM4 £80,000
Assistant Head Social Care SM4 £80,000
Asst Director of Recreation SM4 £80,000
Interim Chief Information Officer SM4 £80,000
Head of Benefits & Local Taxation SM4 £80,000
Head of Op Com, Contracts & Bus Mgmt SM4 £80,000
Head of Audit & Risk Management SM4 £80,000
Prog. Director, CYPS Capital Prog. SM4 £80,000
AD - Adult Learning, Libraries & Culture SM4 £80,000
Programme Director SM4 £80,000
Head of  Performance & Policy SM4 £80,000
Chief Technology Officer SM4 £80,000
Head of Human Resources SM4 £80,000
Assistant Head Litigation & Corporate SM4 £80,000
Assistant Head Commercial SM4 £80,000
Head of Parks & Bereavement Services SM3 £73,000
SEN Strategy Manager SM3 £73,000
Assistant Director SM3 £73,000
Head of Finance -Children's Services SM3 £73,000
Head of Finance - Accounting & Control SM3 £73,000
Head of Finance - UE SM3 £73,000
Head of Workforce Development SM3 £73,000
Head of Environmental Resources SM3 £73,000
Director of NLSA SM3 £73,000
Operations Manager SM3 £73,000
Head Of Sustainable Transport SM3 £73,000
Head of Primary & Special Standards SM3 £73,000
Super Project Manager SM2 £66,000
Head of Finance - Projects SM2 £66,000
Head of Workforce Development SM2 £66,000
Head of Children's Network (North) SM2 £66,000
Children's Bill Development Manager SM2 £66,000
Attendance & Welfare Manager SM2 £66,000
Head of Children's Network West SM2 £66,000
Head of News SM2 £66,000
Head of Finance - ACCS SM2 £66,000
Head of Housing Strategy Dev&Part SM2 £66,000
Head of Finance-Cap, Budget & Fin Plan SM2 £66,000
Head of Learning Disabilities SM2 £66,000
Head of ICT SM2 £66,000
Head of Supplies & Services Procurement SM2 £66,000
Head of Housing Needs & Lettings SM2 £66,000
Head of Service SM2 £66,000
Corporate Head of OD SM2 £66,000
Head of Finance  - Central Services SM2 £66,000
LCE Change Manager-Energy Transformation SM2 £66,000
Head of Parking SM2 £66,000
Service Manager (Physical Disabilities) SM2 £66,000
Head of Finance SM2 £66,000
Head of Service SM2 £66,000
Project Delivery Manager SM2 £66,000
Applications Solution Group Manager SM2 £66,000
Group Manager - Strategy & Development SM2 £66,000
Head of Service SM2 £66,000
Head of Housing Support & Options SM2 £66,000
Service Manager SM2 £66,000
YOS Strategic Manager SM2 £66,000
Head of Provider Services SM2 £66,000
Head of Alternative Provision IA £61,000
Quality & Inclusion Team Manager IA £61,000
School Imp Mngr: Inclusion IA £61,000
School Imp Mngr: Teaching & Learning IA £61,000
SIP Manager IA £61,000
National Strategies Manager IA £61,000
Head of Pupil Support Centre LEAD'SHP £61,000
Principal Lawyer (Senior Legal Officer) SM1 £59,000
Corporate Landlord Manager SM1 £59,000
Management Information/Research Officer SM1 £59,000
Head of HR Shared Services SM1 £59,000
Head of Housing Finance SM1 £59,000
Commissioning & Contracts Manager SM1 £59,000
Corporate Applications Programme Manager SM1 £59,000
Head of Sports and Leisure Services SM1 £59,000
Highways Asset Group Manager SM1 £59,000
Transport Policy & Projects Grp Manager SM1 £59,000
Head of Schools Personnel SM1 £59,000
Deputy Director (Economic Development) SM1 £59,000
Head of Commissioning SM1 £59,000
Head of  Local Democracy SM1 £59,000

 

Any idea how those salaries compare with other London boroughs, Clive? It's certainly tough for a borough like Haringey to attract talent if they can't match salaries.

does anyone know how much is lost each year by non-payment of council tax?

Think it's about 4 or 5 million pa TW.

 

------------------------

 

From Clive's list; I had to look up 'Head of Haringey Forward'

 

Head of News £66,000. Nice.

wow 4 or 5 million, that's a lot of old peoples homes, autism teams, teaching assistants, day centres, connexions advisers, noise officers, free teas,.............................................

Now there's a worthwhile job for Jules Pipe (Hackney Leader and Chair of London Councils): get the (?)32 London Council leaders together to agree "we're paying all these buggers far too much. No one on our payroll should be paid ten times the average Council Worker's wage."

 

Average Council Worker's Salary: in the range £15 - 22,000 pa.

 

eg (2008 figures):

Road Sweeper          £14,430

Teaching Assistant    £15,530

Care Worker             £17,088

Sports Coach           £21,411

Librarian                  £22,388

Building Control Off.   £29,840

_________________________

Average:                 £20,114.50 (=OAE Pension x 2)

 

I am sure there are many Haringey Council Workers on £21,000 pa doing a much better and more honest day's work than quite a few of those 60+ officers on Clive's list. 

 

The Director for Children & Young People is of course on a 'Special Scale' (viz. 'LBH Panic Scale') = Average Worker x 10.

 

If Jules Pipe and his mates are brave enough to lay down a less than savage 20% cut for all officer posts, I'm sure the Director will safeguard as many kids for £168,000 as at present, and Haringey will still be able to recruit a "Head of Local Democracy" for £47,200 pa. We could all apply for the latter post. 

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