So what you might say? The national Government has had to make drastic announcements and every local council is going through a similar Budget process. Manchester has announced it will have to cut 2,000 jobs which is more than Liverpool. Even on the same day Liverpool announced their proposals Lancashire were finalising theirs. In a meeting that agreed even more cuts than Liverpool the police were called to County Hall to deal with the protesters - the first time that has happened in living memory.
Why then was the spotlight on Liverpool last week and at the weekend at a rally at St. George's Hall in Liverpool and will be again on Friday and next Tuesday when the Budget is debated and finalised?
Two main reasons.
One - historically the city has felt national government, and one female PM's government especially, has given Liverpool an unfair deal. An unfair deal which in the 80s almost brought the city to its knees. This belief manifested itself in a fear of the coalition cuts as soon as the coalition was formed. A TUC paper released during the Lib Dem conference in the city last year seemed to confirm this fear with the TUC arguing the North West and Liverpool would suffer disproportionately as a result of national budget reductions.
The local council have argued the same. Launching 'You Choose' a nationally developed budget calculator/simulator for Local Government that allows the public to make departmental cuts to balance the authority budget which will then inform the Council decision on cuts; Liverpool Council declared that the Government's local settlements saw the most deprived areas asked to shoulder the biggest burden. They even showed this in a very visual way with a graph declaring Liverpool to have the worst settlement in proportion to the deprivation it suffers.
Two - Liverpool has put itself very much in the spotlight when it comes to cuts by loudly withdrawing themselves as one of four pilot cities for David Cameron's pet project "The Big Society". Cameron had damaged the chances of giving community and volunteer groups more power, council leader Cllr. Anderson said, by government cuts. They couldn't afford "The Big Society".
So with the spotlight fully on them what did the Council announce were their proposals to make cuts and balance the Budget?
Well the summary document didn't really provide much - Council Tax frozen, more money for business and apprentice development and growth, an attempt to protect children's and adult care. So far no big shocks. The closure of four children centres (aka nurseries) was to be expected although not a done deal as a "consultation" is to begin. A big cut over two years to the libraries budget - so which are to close, will we have shorter opening hours, will staff be replaced by volunteers? Well none of the above as a three month consultation on how to deliver this cut is about to begin. In fact this was the main headline from the proposals - though the budget decisions may have been made in number terms the outcomes of those monetary changes were still to be decided or were vague at best. On leisure centres it was announced that opening hours would be reduced as well as a rather vague "changing levels of service".
In fact in almost every area the specifics were missing or were replaced with a consultation. The You Choose budget tool (which rather randomly stayed active for a few days after the proposals had been announced) seemed very much to be a sign of how the Council wanted the cuts to be viewed a decision made by all of us - or in words made famous by the Coalition "we are all in this together". Even the Unions were unhappy - though the proposals contained numbers staff were no clearer on whether their jobs were safe or not as big decisions hadn't been made.
To be fair on Culture spending there were some clear decisions, amongst others - no Lord Mayor's Parade. What was missing was the funding levels of local Arts Organisations so vital to the city in, and after, '08. It took statements from the organisations themselves, beginning with the Liverpool Philharmonic, to announce they had been asked to take 20% less from the Council.
There are questions for the Council to answer too on the capacity for protest or debate towards these proposals. It is not just the public who have been, or will be consulted; (although how significant that will be remains to be seen) the local political leaders were consulted too. Not just consulted in fact because the announcement of the proposals was made not just by Cllr. Anderson but his Lib Dem, Liberal and Green counterparts. Assuming most Councillors will choose not to publicly defy or question their leader that leaves very, very little political opposition to the cuts to debate or oppose them.
However in a Derren Brown style magic trick Cllr. Anderson appeared to solve this problem by emailing council staff encouraging them to attend a march and rally at which he would speak - against the cuts. So on Sunday afternoon Cllr. Anderson was cheered as he declared that the proposals he had overseen were not at all his doing but were the fault of the national government and David Cameron. "The fightback", he declared, "starts now". The irony of this position was not lost on some anarchists and far left attendees who heckled Anderson for being the architect of the cuts. Those on the right would agree he was the architect and would argue, as many at national government, have done that this was a political set of cuts. Whether that is true or not as the front page of the Liverpool Echo the day after the proposals shows it is not Cllr. Anderson who is losing out politically from the Council cuts.
But is that fair? Well some are calling on Cllr. Anderson to set an illegal budget - refuse to make the cuts and refuse to balance the books. The Council rightly say this is ridiculous. Someone else would make the cuts, they wouldn't have the cities interests at heart and we wouldn't have the authority any more to intervene.
The other argument is that the Council could better deliver cuts through efficiency savings and dipping into Council reserves.
On efficiency savings the Council has a point that not only have they made significant savings in this way but cutting the pay further of their Chief Executive, as Eric Pickles helpfully suggests, would not make a dent in the figure they need to achieve.
Andrew Stunnell has suggested some of the £88 million reserves the Council holds could be used. The Council response is that they ARE releasing £13m, that reserves can only be used once and that much of the reserves are earmarked. Deputy Council Leader Cllr. Brant said in City magazine from the Council delivered to every household that "the amounts are recommended by the District Auditor to prudently cover overspends on major projects, or are held on behalf of schools". Yet there are questions to be asked on reserves. Cllr. Brant is misleading the public when it comes to some of the reserves being earmarked for schools - as the Council's own document below shows the £88 million EXCLUDES the Schools Balances - taking those into account the reserves currently total £105 million. Secondly although the pot called 'Corporate Reserves for Specific Initiatives' is more or less emptied the amount removed from the largest pot 'Reserves for the management of risks' is only just more than the amount that was added to this pot in the last financial year. Surely the financial crisis is an unplanned for risk that this cash could be used to help with? Finally although £14 million is being taken out in the first of the two financial years these proposals cover in the second year a million will be ADDED back into the risks pot and no reserves will be used - in fact in March 2013 the reserves will be higher than in March 2012. Whilst use of reserves alone cannot cover the cuts and the Council cannot bankrupt themselves there are questions to be asked as to why more isn't being done in this area.
Finally - the Government accused Liverpool's withdrawal from 'The Big Society' on political motives, the Council said it was due to lack of money. A detailed look at the Council proposals on Libraries shows the Council still backs it:
"The consultation will include offering local communities the chance to take over the running of facilities, wholly or part time. The Council would prefer to foster co-operative organisations (of staff, service users or residents) to maintain service provision, however it will also work with the private sector where appropriate to maintain provision."
Sounds like 'The Big Society' to me - so was the withdrawal political after all?
On Friday the Cabinet and Financial Select Committee meet to discuss the proposals and make their recomendations to the full Council on the 2nd March - I will be at all three meetings live tweeting and blogging - the spotlight till then and beyond will remain on Liverpool.
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