Council leaders across London are bracing themselves for "deep and painful" cuts in central Government funding to be announced by Eric Pickles the Communities Secretary today in Parliament.
In London councils have already started preparing for job losses with Barnet last week issuing 800 "job-at-risk" notices, Tower Hamlets in London announcing 500 job losses and Hounslow in London confirming 400 jobs are to go.
It is expected social services, libraries; bin collections and sport centres will bear the brunt of the cuts, which are expected to reach 25 per cent in some London councils. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (Cipfa) are projecting 73,000 job losses in local councils next year.
The Times in a report today has said that capital spending ie new schools and sports centres will see "a fifth of all authorities are expecting cuts of 50 per cent or more and nearly half are expecting cuts of between 30 and 50 per cent".
London School of Economics expert on local government has described the cuts as "apocalyptic" and that cuts of this scale have not been seen in the UK since 1945, "or ever".
Areas that councils will try save money will be back office operations with mergers, like Hammersmith and Fulham, Chelsea and Westminster in October announcing joint operations. In October the leaders of the three councils Cllr Colin Barrow, Leader, Westminster City Council, Cllr Stephen Greenhalgh, Leader, Hammersmith and Fulham Council and Cllr Sir Merrick Cockell, Leader, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea on service mergers between the three authorities, following the CSR said:
"That is why this week we have met and decided to potentially share every council service between our three councils. This may include merging services to reduce duplication and drive out needless cost. While we won’t rule anything out at this stage, we expect to focus quite quickly on a few major areas where sharing and merging services is viable and good for the public. There are a number of areas, such as core democratic services where we are unlikely to merge provision."
Over the weekend various councils met in private preparing for the cuts, with one leader stating that it was "necessary but will be very tough".
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