Dear Editor,

I have just read the Income and Savings proposals on Herefordshire County Council’s website. The proposals will badly affect Ross-on-Wye for both individuals and small businesses.

The library is (once again) threatened with closure; shops and business will be affected by increased parking charges including on street parking; removal of public transport subsidies will affect the less mobile and the elderly who rely on this for access to the town and its facilities etc.

I would question the ‘facts’ on which the proposals are made and the basis for the suggested impacts. I would also question whether the Council have conducted sufficient, thorough and analytical research to justify the proposals, as it seems they use the words ‘potential’, ‘could’, ‘may be’, etc in most of the impact summaries.

Based on HM Treasury’s ‘Green Book’, when justifying expenditure on major infrastructure projects, Cost Benefit Analysis is required of statutory authorities, and this includes the need to determine if the impacts are primarily fiscal or a matter of public value.

If such research has been carried out, how have the CBA outputs been calculated to account for risk and uncertainty? Do the same standards not apply to cuts as well as to expenditure increases? There is certainly a moral case for the former, when Council Decisions could so drastically affect individual’s lives.

I would be grateful for an explanation of this from the Council and our elected members and in publication of the basis for these proposals. At present it seems to be the case that ‘we have to reduce expenditure so we have come up with a few suggestions’

Other Local Authorities have proposed similar cuts but only once a cost benefit analysis has been undertaken (e.g. Wolverhampton City Council when considering introducing pay and display parking for on street locations). Will Herefordshire County Council halt the current consultation and publish revised plans with the full facts following thorough analysis of the implications provided to the people of the Herefordshire to whom they have gone out to ‘consultation’?

One final question occurs to me and that is the inevitable (and here I make reference to reports such as that on the effect of cuts published this year by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation) rise in stress caused to those on ‘the front-line’ of service provision.

Faced with more demand arising from fewer locations where services such as libraries are provided, council staff having to deal with complaints and more enquiries from service users et cetera, et cetera.

Increased costs will be incurred by the Council from increased absences from work, increased demands on local health care facilities and, if work is proven to be the cause of stress that contribute to inability to work, then compensation will have to be paid to these staff following civil claims against the Council. This is not to mention the increased legal costs of defending their actions.

The information published in the consultation is at present too basic on which to make considered responses and as such is a PR exercise rather than a valuable input into the decision making process.

Even so I would advise your readers to contribute to this PR exercise by accessing the information on the internet at www.herefordshire.gov.uk/government-citizens-and-rights/democracy/council-finances/priorities-and-budget-consultation-2016-to-2020#consultation, or readers can request printed information, via email: [email protected].

Of course if you don’t have email or a computer then go to the Library - though if the council have their way that facility may not be there for very much longer.

Simon Rosser

Ross-on-Wye