Key cuts announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) include a severe cut of 32% to the budget of English Heritage (more than twice the cuts to museums etc), and the decision to cease funding to CABE, by DCMS; substantial cuts (26% revenue) and reorganisations in local government, alongside a freeing up of budgets for allocation locally and cuts to budgets for devolved governments in line with the Barnett formula.
Speaking on behalf of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation (IHBC), the professional body for conservation specialists, IHBC President Eddie Booth, said: “Such savage cuts are not proportionate and they demonstrate that this government, like others before them, has little regard for the historic environment. The danger of cuts at this scale is that we will see irreparable losses to Britain’s heritage.”
Seán O’Reilly, IHBC Director, said: “This is a missed opportunity on a massive scale. It is not the incisive shot of reality our economy needed, but one massive shot in the foot!
Our built heritage lies at the heart of the UK’s social economy: it underpins the multi-billion pound tourism industry; it is central to the construction industry, half of which deals with existing structures, and where the proper care of traditional buildings creates high-skilled, local jobs with low carbon footprints; in health too, as historic places typically encourage walking, heritage helps reduce obesity and promote low-carbon life-styles; for business, historic buildings and areas encourage mixed-use as they cater equally well to the demands both of many SMEs and home-owners; and low-income communities can benefit from historic areas because, in contrast to new build areas, older places don’t need to generate quick returns for new investors.
At the same time the built heritage presents our rich culture at its most open and accessible. People can enjoy our towns, and buildings, our countryside and cities for free, while owners, usually private, care for them with minimal intervention or support from the state. And since the financial industry has squandered its prestige, one of the few sectors in which the UK can still proudly boast world-leadership is in the conservation and management historic places.
And what does our 21st century, green, culturally aware, climate-conscious, consensus-seeking, locally-focussed, globally-tuned, job-creating government do? It cuts at the heart of some of the few bodies that actually support our hugely diverse and terrifyingly under-resourced historic environment sector. As planning authorities continue to lose conservation staff, under-valuing again the importance of local places to local people, these cuts make the disproportionate reductions at English Heritage, and the threats to CABE, all the more damaging. Once again, with the government as with the banks, short-term financial perspectives are set to undermine our long-term economic viability. With our children, we will be paying for this for a long time yet.”
Select details of cuts and key initiatives, following government press, include:
CLG
The Department for Communities and Local Government announced that over the course of the Spending Review period, DCLG’s overall resource will reduce by 51 per cent in real terms by 2014-15. This includes the devolution of over £1.6 billion to local government, without which the reduction would have been 33%. Capital spending will reduce by 74%.
The Department will achieve these reductions by making savings and increasing efficiency by:
• Government Offices for the Regions are being closed as part of the abolition of regional government and decentralisation of power
• Ending programmes including the Working Neighbourhoods Fund, Growth Area Funding and the Thames Gateway fund in order to rationalise funding streams, make savings and take a more disciplined approach to Government spending and introducing a new Regional Growth Fund
• Reducing the Department’s Arm’s Length Bodies by two-thirds
• Cutting red tape and removing barriers, freeing councils to prioritise time and resources on meeting the needs of local people and delivering better value for money
Initiatives include:
• Inviting bids for a share of the £1.4 billion Regional Growth Fund that will stimulate growth and provide sustainable private sector jobs – particularly in those places that are currently too reliant on the public sector for jobs and investment. DCLG will have a key role on administering this fund. Businesses in partnership with councils will work together, without interference from Whitehall, to target investment to deliver jobs, economic growth and support enterprise
• DCLG will shortly publish a Localism Bill that will set out significant new freedoms, powers and responsibilities for councils and communities. This will include major reforms to the planning system which will be announced shortly. Further details of the Government’s new affordable housing programme and associated reform programme will also be published in November
Local Government
Local Government Resource DEL to councils will reduce by 28% over the Spending Review period. Local councils also receive funding from other Government departments and council tax. When grants from other departments are included, the overall reduction in revenue grants will be 26%.
Local authorities will see forecast reductions of around 30% in overall capital expenditure, including reductions of around 45% in capital funding from Government departments, and OBR forecast of 17% reduction in self-financed capital expenditure.
Councils will find savings through:
• Smarter procurement, increased collaboration and economies of scale, for example 16 London boroughs have saved more than £10 million buying ICT hardware collaboratively through an e-Auction
• Improving asset management, for example Kent estimate that countywide approaches to jointly managing LA assets and other public sector assets could deliver around £40 million per annum potential revenue saving
• Streamlining and merging operations, for example Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham, and Westminster councils plan to merge back office services, and are exploring options to move to a single senior management team and chief executive.
• Considering how best to deliver services – Suffolk County Council is proposing to become a ‘virtual’ authority that divests all but a handful of services and runs residential care homes through social enterprises, aiming to save 30% of its annual £1.1 billion budget
Local authorities will also face difficult but necessary decisions about:
• Their workforce – we expect many local authorities will have to restructure their workforce to live within this settlement, while focusing on the key priorities of their residents. We will make available £200 million of capitalisation in 2011-12, to help support local authorities that undertake organisational restructuring.
• Their borrowing plans – the key flexibility of prudential borrowing will be maintained, but to better reflect the availability of capital funding, the interest rate on loans from the Public Works Loans Board have been increased to an average 1% above UK government gilts;
• And Local Government programme spend will reduce by 33% over the Spending Review, and the priority for the remaining spend will be contractual commitments with the Valuation Office and the costs of collecting business rates
To enable this, the Government is announcing a radical package of devolution to local areas and financial control to manage reductions in line with the priorities of their residents, protect key frontline services, protect the local taxpayer, reduce burdens and drive efficiencies, including:
• Ending ringfencing of all revenue grants from 2011-12, except simplified school grants, and a new public health grant from 2013. This includes a single un-ringfenced Early Intervention Grant worth around £2 billion. The change will give councils significant financial autonomy.
• Very significantly simplify and streamline grant funding, by rolling around £4 billion of grants in 2010-11 to the unhypothecated formula grant. The number of separate core grants for local government will be radically reduced from over 90 to fewer than 10
• This means that in total, local authorities will have greater control over more than £7 billion of funding from 2011-12 which is moving into formula grant, being unringfenced or is new funding for the SR10 period, so enabling them to better meet local communities’ needs.
• Ending the previous top-down local performance framework and reducing the reporting and inspection burden on local government. Comprehensive Area Assessments have been abolished, along with the system of Local Area Agreement targets, handing control of nearly 5,000 top-down targets to local councils to amend or drop as they see fit. We will develop a single list of all of central government’s data requirements from local government, to take effect from April 2011.
DBIS
Over the course of the Spending Review period, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) will reduce its resource budget by 25 per cent. Taking into account anticipated receipts, the cut to capital spending by 2014-15 will be 44 per cent. The Department’s Administration budget will be reduced by 40 per cent, including savings from abolition of the RDAs.
Defra
Over the course of the Spending Review period, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will reduce resource spending by 29% and capital spending by 34%. The Department’s Administration budget will be reduced by 33%. DEFRA will reprioritise its spending, focusing tax payer’s money on British farming and food production; enhancing the environment and biodiversity; and supporting a green economy resilient to climate change.
The Department will manage its reductions by:
• Maximising the use of matched European funding for the Rural Development Programme for England, enabling a £66 million reduction in domestic contributions. This will allow environmental stewardship schemes to remain open to all farmers. DEFRA will also prioritise schemes that will be most beneficial to the environment, increasing the Higher Level Stewardship Scheme by 80%.
• An expected 15% efficiency saving will be made in the procurement strategy for flood and coastal defences. Savings achieved from this will be reinvested into safeguarding and enhancing protection for people and properties. It is estimated that by March 2015, better levels of protection can be expected for 145,000 households in England.
• Abolishing British Waterways as a public corporation in England and Wales; a new waterways charity will be created.
• Reducing the number of quangos DEFRA funds from 92 to 39.
• Reducing administration costs by £174 million through reductions in staff numbers, more efficient IT and procurement practices; increased use of shared services across Government; reducing the size and cost of DEFRA’s corporate estate.
DCMS
Over the course of the Spending Review period, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will reduce overall resource spending by 24%. The core DCMS capital budget will reduce by 32%. The total administration budget for the Department and its arm’s length bodies will be reduced by 41%.
This settlement:
• Protects the core cultural offer by making significant administrative savings across the Department and its arm’s length bodies – 41% reduction overall, and core department and Arts Council admin cut by 50%
• Maintains the planned Olympic budget to enable DCMS to deliver a safe and successful Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2012.
• Contributes to economic growth – securing investment of £530 million over the spending review period (including £300m from the TV licence fee) to boost the UK’s broadband infrastructure.
• Focuses resources on frontline services that the public value – limiting cuts to museums, grant-funded arts organisations and Whole Sport plans to only 15 per cent, and retaining the much-valued free admission to our national museums and galleries.
• Provides funding for Tate Modern, British Museum and British Library (Boston Spa) capital projects.
This means making some significant savings to other areas of spend, including:
• Overall budget cuts to Sport England (around 30pc), UK Sport (around 30pc), and more than 30 per cent reductions to both English Heritage and Visit Britain.
• 19 of DCMS’ 55 public bodies will be abolish or reformed. Includes the abolition of the UK Film Council and Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.
DECC
Over the course of the Spending Review period, the Department of Energy and Climate Change will reduce resource spending by 18% in real terms, and increase capital spending by 41% in real terms. The Department’s Administration budget will be reduced by 33%.
Scotland
Over the course of the Spending Review period the Scottish Government will reduce resource spending by 7% in real terms, and capital spending by 38% in real terms. It will be up to the Scottish Government to decide how to manage these reductions reflecting its own policies and priorities including its own programmes of greater efficiency and public sector reform.
The settlement has been determined through the Barnett formula in the normal way. The Barnett formula provides the devolved administrations with a population based share of comparable changes in the provision to UK departments.
The Scotland Office’s resource budget will be cut by 25 per cent. The Department will also commence a programme of work to develop shared services with the Northern Ireland Office and Wales Office.
Wales
Over the course of the Spending Review period, the Welsh Assembly Government will reduce resource spending by 7% in real terms, and capital spending by 41% in real terms. It will be for the Welsh Assembly Government to decide how to manage these reductions reflecting its own policies and priorities including its own programmes of greater efficiency and public sector reform.
The settlement has been determined through the Barnett formula in the normal way. The Barnett formula provides the devolved administrations with a population based share of comparable changes in the provision to UK departments.
The Wales Office’s resource budget is being cut by 25 per cent. The Department will also commence a programme of work to develop shared services with the Scotland Office and Northern Ireland Office.
Northern Ireland
Over the course of the Spending Review period, the Northern Ireland Executive will reduce resource spending by 7% in real terms, and capital spending by 37% in real terms. The Government is confident, however, that Northern Ireland is still on course to invest £18bn by 2017-18 as set out in its Investment Strategy.
It will be for the Northern Ireland Executive to decide how to manage these reductions reflecting its own policies and priorities including its own programmes of greater efficiency and public sector reform.
The Northern Ireland Executive’s settlement has been determined by the Barnett formula in the normal way. The Barnett formula provides the devolved administrations with a population based share of comparable changes in the provision to UK departments.
Small and Independent Bodies
Over the course of the Spending Review period most small departments will deliver at least a 25% reduction in resource spending and a 46% reduction in capital spending. Overall small departments will reduce spending on admin by 33%.
Download HM Treasury notes Here or at: LINK
Download Baroness Andrews’ response to the cuts as Chair of English Heritage Here
No 10 News: LINK
CABE News:LINK
