Hello Everyone, It’s been another week of focus for me and the
Cabinet on all things council finances and on Monday we published our final
Budget 2024/25 plans for the coming year. Our Local Investment for Fairness in Tough
Times Budget 2024/25 reflects our enduring commitment to
protect frontline services, invest so that we secure Newham’s long-term future
and continue to improve the Council so that you and all our residents remain
well served. As you can imagine, it’s been quite a tough
budget setting process this time round because of the unprecedented scale of
pressures facing all councils and the failure of the UK government in providing
much needed funding to local government to meet rising costs and demands -
estimated by experts to reach £4 billion over the coming two years. Added to that, costs facing councils are also growing
significantly faster than general inflation. For instance, wages for frontline
workers; the cost of adult and children’s social care (especially in
specialist placements for young people where their safety is paramount); and higher
temporary accommodation costs as more and more families face homelessness.
Already, data from the government shows how over the April – September 2023
period spending on children’s social care services was up 16% and up 26% on
homelessness compared with the same period in 2022. In
Newham, we already have amongst the largest number of households in temporary
accommodation in the UK and it’s set to grow. You can read all the details in Our Local Investment for Fairness in Tough
Times Budget 2024/25 report
here. Just to flag
there are 23 additional documents in total! Including our response to the
Budget Working Committee who have been interrogating our proposals as well
which you can read here. This coming Tuesday, we’ll be
approving the Budget at a meeting of Cabinet; and then the Budget
plans will be presented to a special Full Council meeting with all councillors
at the end of this month. Our Budget 2024/25 plans come at a time when the
Office of National Statistics official confirmed this week that the UK economy
fell into a recession at the end of last year. Caused by economic uncertainty
and inflation, it’s fuelled a desperate cost of living crisis which is being
felt hard by all of us – even our children.
That’s why I was pleased to invite
the Deputy
Mayor of London for children and families, Joanne McCartney to showcase our Eat
for Free programme which we offer to all
primary school children so that they can eat a healthy and nutritious meal each
day; and which save parents £500 per child every year. This week, I also had the chance to meet with
some exceptional residents from the campaign group, Vision Ability, at an event
I hosted at the Old Town Hall Stratford earlier in the week. Vision Ability
advocate for the rights of Newham residents who are blind or have a visual
impairment. They told me that there isn’t enough public awareness of the
challenges they face and how it leads to their isolation, as well as risks
their safety. Collaboratively, we're
gearing up to launch a comprehensive advocacy campaign to tackle the challenges
facing those who are blind or visually impaired who are often forgotten,
marginalised or ignored. I don’t want that for them here in Newham, and we will
be collaborating to change things. On Thursday night, I was back at the Old Town
Hall Stratford for our first-ever networking event for Newham’s creatives as we
countdown to March when we will find out if we have won our bid to become the London
Borough of Culture 2025. It was a night where we also showcased an array of
mesmerising performances; showing how Newham is the beating heart of London’s
culture. As we carry on with our investments to protect
our frontline services, we are also investing in local businesses. As part of
our Newham Sparks programme we
are offering local businesses the opportunity to learn about how AI and data
skills can help sustain and grow their businesses. We have a series of free workshops
on offer for local businesses and no prior data experience is needed!
Interested? Find out more or register here – for the session coming up at 6.00pm on Tuesday
20th February over at East Ham Town Hall, which will become London’s
first ever Data Campus. Before I sign off, don’t forget to check out
our 2024
LGBTQ+ Month programme for exciting events across the borough!
Until next week, stay well and take
care!
Best wishes,
Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz OBE
Follow what I am up to via X/Twitter: @rokhsanafiaz | 
