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RATES- CUTS TO SERVICES SHOULD BE LAST RESORT

Published: 20 January, 2009

RATES- CUTS TO SERVICES SHOULD BE LAST RESORT

"Need to achieve efficiency to continually improve and deliver more community value from our services" Councillor Jimmy Mc Creesh

Sinn FéinNewry and Mourne District Councillor Jimmy Mc Creesh commenting on the current rates crisis, has said that there is a real need to keep Council spend down whilst achieving a high level of performance and satisfaction. "Efficiency savings by reducing waste in our processes rather than cuts in our frontline services should be at the heart of everything we decide, when setting the rate" said the Sinn Féin Councillor who continued "We are facing a potential massive Rates hike and really to maintain the faith of ratepayers we must ensure that rates revenues are used effectively and efficiently. Senior Council management need to target genuine cashable savings from all their Departments and reinvest them into priority areas and front line services". Councillor Mc Creesh acknowledged that ratepayers were concerned at what they percieved as waste and overspending by Council Departments. "Approximately £237,000 is the price that ratepayers pay to clean Newry and Mournes thirteen toilets, from April to December of last year £221,000 was spent on Marketing and Advertising and £62,000 was spent on a Newry and Mourne Marketing Budget" said the Councillor who also acknowledged that elected members themselves would have to seriously assess the budgets and costs attributed to them. "There are many such examples of where we should be reducing, in a realistic and sustainable fashion, the proportion of monies spent on such programmes and reinvest them in our priority services". He concluded by stating that whilst all Councillors could not ignore the present demanding financial reality and challenge, there was no possibility that Councillors could justify massive rates rises with cutbacks to key services. "The old mantra of "If communities want services maintained and service standards increased, then they need to be paid for somehow" will not wash any longer with most people. There can be absolutely no justification for rate rises that on the one hand reduces frontline staff and services, whilst on the other ignores the demand for value for money and the need to achieve efficiency to continually improve and deliver more community value in the context of finite resources" said Councillor Mc Creesh