Grant cuts to HDC will mean more cuts!

The Coalition Government has announced the Grants Allocation for Councils. Huntingdonshire hasn't done that well.

The Formula grant has been cut to roughly to £10.5 million. This is down from the £11.1 million and is a further shortfall of £0.6 million than predicted. There is an additional grant for this year only of £1.1 million (Reads £1.3 million but £0.2 already included in HDC calculations for zero Council Tax increase). This will help for this year only and will mean the £0.5 million of unfunded cuts will not now have to happen this year. The additional grant, mainly for Council Tax and Housing Benefit administration, cannot be relied on. In the initial proposal for 2012-13 Grant Allocation this extra grant fall out.

For 2012/13 the formula grant was predicted to be £10.5. The proposed grant total is reduced to £9.3 million. This is a further fall of £0.6 million. An unpredicted fall of £1.2 million. Add this to the "savings still required" of £1.6 million, this will mean an extra £2.8 million of cuts has to be found.

Is the DCLG fiddling the figures? With the additional additional grant falling out for 2012/13 the 5.04% reduction doesn't take any account of the loss of additional grant. I feel this is wrong and distorts the figures.

Without the additional grant the outlook for HDC is more cuts and deeper cuts. This will mean the Conservative ruled HDC will have to act fast, something it hasn't done for many years.