Coventry City Council should sell assets, says Unison

A union has urged Coventry City Council to consider selling assets and dipping into reserves before making £15m cuts.



The council has warned it will have to make "some really difficult decisions about services" in the next budget.

But Sarah Feeney, Coventry Unison branch secretary, fears services will be "decimated" and said more could be done before "drastic cuts" are made.

The council has said its proposals are necessary to tackle an anticipated £24m cut in government funding in 2015-16.

The Labour-run council warned in October that services would be affected as part of "unprecedented cuts" as it dealt with a predicted £65m budget shortfall by 2018.

But Ms Feeney said: "We believe it is going to decimate services in Coventry.

"It's not just about members' jobs, it's about the services they give to the people of Coventry".

She said the union feared most libraries would close and services such as children's centres and community centres would also be hit.

"There are probably very few frontline services it isn't going to affect," she said.

The branch secretary claimed the council had "rising reserves" as well as a "large amount of assets", which could be utilised to reduce spending cuts.

"Whilst I'm not suggesting we throw out all the silver and sell it all off, I do believe there is there is a lot more they could do before we have to make such drastic cuts."

The council's budgets proposals are under public consultation until 27 January before its budget is set at a meeting on 24 February.

I believe there is plenty of waste to be cut that would cause a minimum of disruption to front-line services, but the council won't act on this because it is attempting to make a political statement against central government, rather than do what we, the local tax payers, pay it to do.

As regards selling things off, yes, by all means if they're not cash generating assets, or if they're away from the core business of the council. However, you can only sell anything once, and you need to get the best price for it. - Difficult in a depressed market!