County spending cut by £8.4 million

More than £8 million was slashed from the county spending budget this week.

The cuts agreed by East Sussex County Council's cabinet on Monday will affect mainly transport and children's services but adult social care has also come into the firing line.

This was ESCC's share of the 1.16 billion cut from local authority budgets across Britain demanded by the Government in its attempt to settle the nation's financial deficit.

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ESCC is to slice 2.4 million from the Children's Services budget which will mean losing free transport to school as well as the school lunch grant.

A further 1.93 million was taken from Transport and Environment, affecting road safety and speed management across the county, while volunteering and employment programmes lost their funding.

Cabinet member Councillor Carl Maynard '“ who is also leader of Rother District Council '“ commented this week that while the Rother area had not yet been badly affected, cuts were on their way locally as well as county-wide.

He told the Observer: "As far as the county council is concerned, I think we have reacted quickly to a central Government that has reacted quickly to the national deficit, in terms of where we are.

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"Local government is '“ and should be, frankly '“ to play its part in bridging that gap.

"Residents will expect us to look very carefully at any proposed cuts, and I think we have."

He warned that these immediate measures are just the start of the process and said: "This isn't the end to cuts, this is the beginning of the pain that is going to last another four or five years, at its minimum."

He said in order to bridge the gap between what has been spent on services in the past and what is available now, ESCC would be looking at other ways of providing services, such as working with the public sector, or the third sector, meaning charities and volunteers.

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He commented that there needs to be "a new kind of initiative".

Cllr Maynard added: "We will be cutting services in the immediate to the long term '“ there is no doubt about it. We can't provide the general public with the level of services it is used to."

Cllr Joy Hughes also attended the meeting, though not part of the decision making process herself, and said afterwards of the 8.4 million cut: "It is hard to say, and hard to do '“ but it has got to be done. Better to do it now, and start looking forward."