Sirs,
Councillor Jane Davies letter about Wiltshire Council’s plans to alter the way Marlborough’s Jubilee Centre and The Enablement Hub (formerly the New Road Centre) are funded, requires a response – however belated.
Her letter contains some strange assertions. First, she refers to them all as ‘clubs’ (even ‘wonderful clubs’) – as though they were something that people join for the fun of it. Does she realise that these volunteer-run day centres provide essential social services?
Then she states grants from Wiltshire Council must end because they “…are a closed system and new clubs wishing to start up are not able to access funds.” This ridiculous statement simply hides Wiltshire Council’s decision not to provide any funding whatsoever for new ‘clubs’ (her word).
Amidst the vagueness of the Councillor’s new Open Framework for funding, there lurks the truth that Wiltshire Council simply does not want to continue funding these centres – organisations whose services help save, in the long term, both the Council and the NHS both time and money.
Councillor Davies calculates that Wiltshire Council’s annual funding for such ‘clubs’ (her word) equates to £0.08 per person for the Chippenham Community Area and £3.88 per person in the Marlborough Community Area. This, one should expect in normal times, would energise the Council to level up and provide more funding to the Chippenham area. But no. We are firmly set in the era of ‘levelling down’ – yet another chapter of Osborne austerity.
The Council’s new policy will presumably rely on finding sponsors and benefactors to replace Council money – appearing as a misty-eyed version of the failed Big Society of David Cameron and Danny Kruger. We are getting close to the Victorian era’s idea of charity – good deeds handed out by wives of the rich from the nearest ‘big house’.
Had there been Food Banks in the Victorian era, you can be sure those ladies (with their maids in close attendance) would have delivered a goodly supply of Victoria sponge cakes and miniature cucumber sandwiches to the ‘needy’.
Basing the need for a change on inequalities in the current funding provision is a dangerous game. Councillor Davies appears unmoved by the appalling inequality in Marlborough’s share of Wiltshire Council’s spend on their costly ‘Campus Programme’.
Using her own base of Community Area populations, it is clear that while Melksham has received the equivalent of £842.32 per person, Marlborough has received £zero per person. (Or, if you insist that Area Board funds are the same as the Campus capital funding, then Marlborough’s £20,000 grants for the Youth Centre and the Tennis Club equate to £1.10 person against Melksham’s £842.32 per person.)
Remember those figures in April when you pay your new level of Council Tax.
There is a lot that Wiltshire Council no longer wants to do for Council Tax payers. We can all recall the rows and partial climb-down over its decision not to continue providing outdoor education for the county’s children.
There are, as the Councillor must know, a number of voluntary organisations that have already had their funding reduced or stopped completely. Remember that when you pay your new level of Council Tax. The era of ‘small government’ mixed with austerity is still taking its toll on vital services.
Yours,
Tony Millett
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