Northumberland County Council has proposed increasing highways maintenance by £650,000 and spending £1M on an apprenticeship and graduate trainee scheme.
The council, which will become a unitary authority in April, has revised its budget proposals for 2009/10 following public consultation, which revealed concerns about the condition of local roads.
As well as increasing the highways maintenance budget, the proposals include reinstating the local transport plan at £18M, after the original budget consultation suggested limiting the LTP capital expenditure at £12M.
An apprenticeship scheme for 100 young people has been put forward at a cost of £180,000 in 2009/10, rising to £700,000 by 2012/13. A spokesperson said the council was ‘currently working up the detail on the scheme’, but it was likely to involve highways and engineering. ‘There will be a scheme for 14 to 16-year-olds, and one for post-16,’ she added. The graduate training scheme would cost £150,000.
‘While we recognise the financial pressures facing the council, it is important that we invest in the future of our county and our young people,’ said council leader, Jeff Reid. A Surveyor questionnaire last week revealed growing enthusiasm for in-house apprenticeship schemes as a solution to bridge the skills gap (Surveyor, 5 February 2009).
The renewed budget also proposes completing the waste PFI scheme, and providing free post-16 transport. The two-year waste programme, which is aimed at making Northumberland one of the ‘greenest’ counties in managing its waste, has been undertaken in partnership with SITA UK under the council’s long-term waste PFI contract, with government support in the form of £40.8M in PFI credits.
But the budget also proposes axing two positions from the council’s rights-of-way team. ‘While we appreciate that any reduction in resource will give cause for concern, we can assure residents and visitors of our continued intention to maintain the quality of the rights of way network,’ a spokesman said.
The council expects compulsory redundancies to be kept well below 100, as a result of existing vacancies, voluntary redundancies and redeployment – ‘far less than the originally rumoured 3,000’.
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