Cuts may well have little effect

A day after hearing that Boston Borough Council apparently not only administers services for the Boston Business Improvement area at no charge, and also pays a small fortune to be a member, it's interesting to learn that the council is "preparing for the cuts" according to the borough website.
Local councils have to chip in £1.166 billion towards total government savings of £6.2 billion, and whilst Boston's general grant is not being reduced in 2010/11, it will suffer a series of salami slices to a series of grants.
But is it as bad as it looks?
A grant of £330,000 towards community cohesion funding will be cut by £78,000, which means there will be less money to award grants to the voluntary sector.
Whilst this will generate the usual squeals of outrage, history shows that often, all manner of grants are made to organisations who often do not use them wisely - and equally could manage perfectly well without them if they had to.
An expected £22,000 Local Authority Business Growth Incentive funding has been cut, but had not been allocated to a specific purpose, and given the way the borough is wasting the £52,000 awarded by the previous government's Communities and Local Government Department "to improve the appearance and vibrancy of town centres," it clearly lacks imagination in this department, so again this cut back is of little significance.
Then, there's the £216,000 which had been expected from the Housing and Planning Delivery Grant. This money would have supported "development of the local development framework" - a Government initiative to manage how local development takes place in towns and the countryside. The appearance of the word "development" twice in one sentence is a warning in itself that we're just looking at a talking shop here, and the news that Boston Borough Council is talking to South Holland District Council about saving money by merging this service further reinforces the belief.
We all remember what happened last time Boston spent months planning a merger with SHDC - it all fell apart.
Add to the the fact that South Holland regards Boston as something nasty looking found on one's instep after a walk in the long grass, we don't hold out much hope for any great developments there.
We're told that the council has already carried out a review of its top management structure, which has now been slimmed to the bare minimum of a chief executive and two directors - although lots of fancy titles still seem to be in evidence, and an early major review of "everything the council does and how it does it" has been initiated.
Meanwhile, it's hold-your-breath-time until July's cabinet meeting which "will lead the way for prioritisation and programming of the council’s work to ensure it can balance the 2012-13 budget and beyond."
We await the deliberations of the Magnificent Eight with bated breath.

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