LETTER: Cheshire East Council Budget Consultation 2024-25

Dear Editor,
In one of the documents of Cheshire East Council Budget Consultation, you show that central support has dropped for £55M to near zero over 10 years, then state that “The council must therefore do things differently for less”.

Well, was this not the whole idea?

Local councils were meant to reduce their costs over that 10 years – if you are still attempting to run the budget at the 2013/14 cost, then you will have trouble.

This appears to be evidence that you have not performed sufficiently well historically.

Then in the MARS appendix, it suggests a £50k per annum saving for each of three years.

Really, that is the greatest level of savings you can make from the salary budget? That seems fairly poor.

In the SEND budget for children with transport needs, I understand that there is a suggestion that transport for anyone needing it over 16 years of age is stopped.

You seem woefully unaware of the benefit that education provides.

Those young adults are being forced to travel across (and outside) the region to get their education.

If the council cannot provide the correct education locally (there have been years to plan it); then it seems rather unfair to not provide free travel.

It is also a slap in the face of the carers of these young people; raising a child with extra needs is a massive strain, which a caring, sharing, council should be supporting and not making life unnecessarily more difficult for them.

Just the suggestion of withdrawing such support will be a huge stress factor for people.

In summary, these elements of the proposed budget raise serious concerns about the management of the council over the years.

I would appreciate a response to justify the above.

Regards

Anonymous
Macclesfield