MIDDLESBROUGH residents are being invited to give their views on proposed cuts to local authorities’ public health budgets.
In June, the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced a package of savings to be made across Government amounting to £3bn.
This figure includes £200m to be removed from public health spending and the Department of Health is now consulting on how this will be achieved.
Middlesbrough Council’s Executive and its Health Scrutiny Panel will both be responding to the consultation.
Additionally, the health scrutiny panel is seeking the public’s views on the proposals.
The question being asked is:
How should the Department of Health spread the £200 million saving across the LAs involved?
Option A: Devise a formula that claims a larger share of the saving from LAs that are significantly above their target allocation.
Option B: Identify LAs that carried forward unspent reserves into 2015/16 and claim a correspondingly larger share of the savings from them.
Option C: Reduce every LA’s allocation by a standard, flat rate percentage. Nationally the £200 million saving amounts to about 6.2 per cent of the total grant for 2015/16, so that would also be the figure DH applied to individual LAs.
Option D: Reduce every LA’s allocation by a standard percentage unless an authority can show that this would result in particular hardship.
Residents can send their views via e-mail to elise_pout@middlesbrough.gov.uk