Jobs and services are facing axe in Cornwall

PROPOSED CUTS in Cornwall council's expenditure that are due to be announced in October will have a devastating impact on services and jobs.

Terry Turvey, Socialist Party - Penzance

The Tory council leader, Alec Robertson, says the council is looking to shed an unprecedented 2,000 jobs out of a workforce of 22,000. He has also indicated that cuts in vital services for children and adults are not out of the question in a bid to cut Ł110 million over the next four years. Given that many communities across Cornwall are very poor this does not bode well for the most vulnerable and needy.

Certainly in Penzance, where I live, this is only too apparent. For example, a day centre providing physical and emotional support to the elderly and their relatives that had been previously threatened with closure (but reprieved after community resistance) is, once again, a likely target.

Feared cuts in council grants to organisations providing services to adults with drug and alcohol dependency problems is of significant concern. The same applies to essential children and family services.

Cuts by the Con-Dem government in housing and other benefits will make matters a lot worse for the poor and as high levels of unemployment rise further there is little doubt social problems will increase too.

However, it is not all bad news in Cornwall. As the capitalist elite protect themselves, at the cost of making the poor even poorer and allowing working class communities to decay, the annual salary of the chief executive of Cornwall council has just entered the top 30 of chief executive earnings across the country. He 'earned' a 'mere' Ł238,000.

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In The Socialist 9 September 2010:

We can stop the Con-Dem cuts