Alternative View on Stoke-on-Trent Council Budget

The fresh take on SOTCC's latest budget in comparison to Staffordshire, Birmingham and Manchester peers.

Stoke-on -Trent City Council’s new budget:

• Receiving £42.2m loan over two years

• £8m in budget reduction 📉

• £40 charge for brown bins ♻️

• reduction in Library opening hours 💡

• 4.99% council tax rise (£5 per month increase for average council taxpayer) 📈

• Increase in spend on children’s services, adults’ services and public health to £192.2m 📈

Source: Stoke Gov UK

Context:

• Greater Manchester Councils raise tax 5% and cut £100m in spending (BBC)

• Birmingham council approves biggest budget cuts in local authority history (The Guardian)

• Staffordshire County Council investing despite budget alongside similar 5% council tax increase and two thirds of budget spend, £435m, on the provision of social care for the elderly and for supporting and protecting vulnerable children and young people(Staffordshire County Council)

Key Areas of Interest for Stoke

• SOTCC spends £62m a year on 1,200 children in care 💔

• Stoke-on-Trent has the highest proportion of children in care anywhere in England

• SOTCC have had to make £270m in savings 📊

The Alternate View

Editors Note by James Routledge

The uses of the word “dire” and “huge” in this StokeonTrentLive & The Sentinel article are misleading.

If SOTCC finances are dire. So are every single council’s in the country.

Stoke is not alone. Stoke is not a victim. Stoke is experiencing similar challenges to our peers.

We need a community and media outlet that supports our City and the people working hard to, at this point, keep it afloat.

Decisions by local leaders need to be examined and challenged, yet they also need to be looked at with empathy, compassion and context.

I can’t support every decision SOTCC make yet I feel that it’s completely unfair that they are blamed for seemingly all of Stoke’s challenges with little appreciation of the wider system they are operating in.