On 7th March Powys’ County Councillors finally agreed
Powys County Council’s (PCC) budget for 2019/20.
The new budget contains a range of cuts to funding and
services that will impact, directly and indirectly, upon
communities, local groups, and third sector services.
However, it’s pleasing that the amended budget
includes a number of significant changes from the
original proposals:
- A new Community Enablement Fund (CEF) of £100,000 to be set up
- Sports development Powys savings target to be cut by £50,000 – almost half
- Libraries savings of £200,000 that would see potential closure of 12 branches were dropped
- £90,000 funding allocated to support Powys Arts and Cultural organisations
In the run up to March’s council meeting PAVO staff
had been busy sharing information and lobbying with
several of PCC’s political groups about the
consequences of the cuts proposed in the original
version of the budget.
It’s therefore gratifying to see a number of cuts have
been reversed or reduced; particularly the
commitment to retaining £100,000 for CEF funding.
Sadly, Councillors were placed in the position of having
to make their decisions upon the budget without
meaningful impact assessments. Those assessments
that had been prepared fell far short of being a proper
assessment of what the real impacts of proposed
budget savings would be upon people, communities
and groups.
PAVO’s grant was withdrawn totally. This will clearly
have an impact on our capacity to support the third
sector in Powys.
Looking ahead, it seems highly likely that Powys County
Council will be facing continued pressures upon its
budgets and spending for the foreseeable future.
Consequently, the positive changes secured to the
2019/20 budget could well become subject to
challenges in future years.
For this reason PAVO is keen to gather information
about how the 2019/20 budget cuts to spending on
community groups and voluntary organisations affect
their viability and services. This will provide invaluable
evidence for future discussions about PCC’s funding of
our sector.
To help gather this information, we have prepared a
short survey. Please click here
https://goo.gl/forms/LeO42V6us1PUv6n13
PAVO asks all of our member organisations affected by
PCC’s 2019/2020 budget cuts if you would spend a few
minutes completing it and sharing with us your
assessment of how the changes will affect you.
- The revised PCC budget proposal (as passed by Council on 7th March) can be found at: https://tinyurl.com/y6m3qjs9
- The online webcast of the Council meeting on 7th March can be viewed at: https://tinyurl.com/y5qlqck3
- Information about the voting at the meeting (including the votes of individual Councillors attending) can be found at: https://tinyurl.com/y3aqk23h
Should you wish further information about the issues
covered in this Briefing or would like to discuss the
them further, please contact PAVO on 01597 822191
or info@pavo.org.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment