Further budget cuts announced by Reading Borough Council

Since 2010 the borough council has made nearly £45m of cuts to its budgets including reducing its staffing levels by 622 to around 2,500 — but it still has to find a further £25m worth of savings by 2018.

Now council leaders have unveiled a further £8.67m package of cuts that will go before the policy committee for approval on Monday which includes axing 60 full-time positions and cutting the public health, education and adult social care budgets.

Council leader Jo Lovelock (pictured) insisted that the council has tried to manage the cuts by reshaping the departments and making efficiency savings, but said the rising number of old and young people is putting more pressure on under-funded services. She added: “It goes without saying that the very old and the very young are the most likely to need our services. It will put further pressure on us over time.

“We have reached a point in time where we cannot avoid some cuts in budgets that will impact on the public. It is simply impossible to avoid the impact from now on.” Reading’s population has risen by nine per cent to 159,200 since 2001 but is expected to spike by a further 24 per cent by 2050 up to 193,056.

The plans include new adult social care and education strategies as well as reducing the council’s call centre hours from 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday to 9am to 5pm on week days. The Customer Hub’s opening hours will be reduced by one hour to 9am to 5pm.

But although Cllr Lovelock insisted that no services are going to be closed completely she warned these cuts could mean neighbours will have to wait longer to access their support.

She said: “We will do our best to manage it by not filling vacancies and transferring people across to different posts.

“There have been some compulsory redundancies which is regrettable. We very much regret that it is the visible sign of what’s happening in terms of the reality of the massive cuts we are having to make. None of us relishes any of this.”