Organisations across the country are closing and losing services as councils and public bodies implement swingeing cuts from April
London and south-east England
Harrow youth offending team
New Cross library, south London
Park ranger service, Lambeth, south London
Permanent secretary for government communications
Real Lettings
Lewisham Connexions centre, south London
Playing for Success, south London
Newham Asian Women's Project, east London
Youthreach youth counselling service, south London
Tower Hamlets council help for teachers
CSV Vibe NHS hospital volunteer project, Sidcup, south London
Artsdepot, North Finchley, London
Haringey Advisory Group on Alcohol, north London
The House of Commons, Westminster
The Rose Theatre, Kingston upon Thames
Northern England
East Leeds leisure centre
Community family support workers, Oldham
South Tyneside Churches KEY Project
Maplehome, Pensall House, Poulton House, Meadowcraft, Fernleigh care homes, the Wirral, Merseyside
Leeson Project, Speke, Liverpool
Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse
Morpeth flood defence scheme
Rochdale Law Centre
Trimdon Grange community centre, Stockton-on-Tees
Public toilets, Piccadilly bus station, Manchester
Building Bridges Pendle
Midlands and East Anglia
Refugee Action "one stop" advice service
Birmingham Citizens Advice bureaux
MRC Community Action, Coalville, Leicestershire
School crossing patrols, Suffolk
KicFM youth radio station, Wolverhampton
Weoley Castle Community Projects, Birmingham
Warwick fire station
The Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent
Handel Street day centre for street drinkers, Nottingham
South-west England
Devon Conservation Forum
Dulverton and District Young People's Project, Exmoor
Wales
Terrence Higgins Trust CHAPS Cymru project, Wales
Swansea University modern foreign languages department
Gwent Theatre, Abergavenny
Scotland
Blindcraft, Edinburgh
Re-JIG: Recycling ? Jura Islay Group, southern Hebrides
Scottish Refugee Council
Rape Crisis Centre, Glasgow
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland Music Therapy Trust
London and south-east England
Harrow youth offending team
Cut: �150,000 (30%)
An explosion in antisocial behaviour and crime is predicted after Harrow youth offending team was asked to cut a third of its budget. The team works with about 300 10- to 18-year-olds each year and handles 100 court orders at any one time. Many of the young offenders face exclusion from school, have learning disabilities, mental health issues, or demonstrate violent behaviour and self-harm.
The organisation had budgeted for a 10% cut in funding, in line with official Youth Justice Board indications, but a month ago was told by the Ministry of Justice that its allocation would be slashed by 30%.
Councillor Mitzi Green, portfolio holder for children's services at the London borough of Harrow, says: "These excessive cuts will severely restrict the work of the youth offending team and severely restrict our ability to nip problems in the bud.
"The really worrying aspect is that more young people will suffer and be in danger of reoffending, with the consequence that residents suffer from further crime and antisocial behaviour. We could all be losers here." AB
New Cross library, south London
Cut: �995,000 from Lewisham's total library budget of �4.6m (21.6%)
New Cross library, one of five Lewisham libraries set to close their doors, is not a grand affair. Local campaigner James Holland calls the building "a bit rubbish", neglected in recent years, and with a leaking roof. But, he says, it's crucial to its community. "It has a family atmosphere and parents feel happy to leave their kids there. And there are lots of older people who don't have the mobility to travel to the central library in Deptford."
Lewisham has been the centre of a vigorous protest, including a legal challenge, but the planned closure date is looming fast. For the moment, New Cross library is carrying on as normal, with people desperately hoping, says Holland, that "something will turn up". If the closure goes ahead it will "gut" the community, he believes.
"New Cross doesn't have a centre, and as much as it does, the library is it. There's no other non-commercial space where people can sit, chat, use computers, read books. There are cafes, but you don't go in there unless you have �2.50 for a cappuccino and round here many people don't. Losing the library will mean there will be nowhere to go." BP
Park ranger service, Lambeth, south London
Cut: �400,000
The 11 park rangers are, says Lambeth's website, "the 'eyes and ears' of the council and community in our parks and green spaces", but all the posts will be abolished following the government's cuts to Lambeth's funding. The rangers say they have cut crime in the parks by 40% over the seven years since the service was founded, driving out drug use, prostitution and the dumping of burnt-out cars and other rubbish. They also work with community groups serving children, homeless people and those with mental health problems.
The work of the rangers in providing welcoming green space in the inner city is testified to by residents, 500 of whom have signed a petition protesting at the cut. "Lambeth parks and green spaces are vital to people's health and wellbeing," says one resident, Stefan Finnis.
Another, Yvonne Levy, says: "There was a dreadful time when the parks were run down and became no-go areas, with women advised not to go to parks alone. The rangers have restored confidence and made parks accessible to everyone again." DC
Permanent secretary for government communications
Cuts: �160,000-�164,900 (100%)
The cut represents the salary for Matt Tee, the incumbent in the post, whose last day in the job will be 31 March.
The post of head of communications across government was created in the wake of the Iraqi invasion, the "sexed-up" dossier and the row over Labour's reliance on spin. It was designed to decontaminate the government's communications operation and end the domination of spin doctors.
Last year, the government ordered a review of the Whitehall public relations operation. Tee, who took over in 2009, was to conduct it, and his first decision ? seeing an inevitable scaling back and the difficulty of justifying such a senior job for managing it ? was to announce he was standing down. The government has confirmed he will not be replaced.
Tee's review, published last week, will see the scrapping of the 60-year-old Central Office of Information, to be replaced with a Government Communications Centre. About 1,000 employees, out of the government's communication staff of 6,848, will be made redundant, saving about �50m a year from the �329m annual communications staff budget. PC
Cuts: �20,900
About 88 vulnerable young people who depend on an innovative accommodation scheme face eviction as a result of benefit cuts. Real Lettings is a social enterprise run by the homeless charity Broadway, which leases properties from private landlords and rents them to people who have previously been homeless, often as a result of drug or alcohol abuse.
The tenants are typically unemployed or on very low incomes, and their rent is covered by local housing allowance (LHA). But changes to LHA rules mean payment levels will be reduced and the age from which someone qualifies to be a sole tenant, rather than a house-sharer, will rise from 25 to 35. The changes apply to new tenants from this April, and to existing tenants from April 2012.
Real Lettings' younger clients will lose LHA to the tune of �20,900.
Howard Sinclair, chief executive of Broadway, says: "We can try to find them a place in a shared property or we can try to find them somewhere outside of London, away from their support networks. Neither are good solutions for people who may have had drug and alcohol issues." JI
Lewisham Connexions centre, south London
Cuts: �1.6m (100%); 35 staff to lose their jobs on 1 April
Lewisham Connexions centre is in one of the country's most deprived neighbourhoods and has helped 15,000 teenagers every year since it was set up a decade ago. More than half of the 13- to 25-year-olds who seek advice are, or are in danger of becoming, "neets" ? young people not in education, employment or training. The centre has specialised in giving advice to pregnant teenagers and young people with housing problems.
The centre has now closed, but staff are finishing their work in schools and colleges, and trying to find alternative help for the teenagers they work with. Lewisham council decided not to renew the contract it awarded to Babcock International, a support services company, to run the Connexions centre. The council says instead it would target funding on neets.
In the last few months, the service has helped a young man recently out of prison to train as a youth worker. He told the centre that the job meant he now had "to act professionally". "I am respected rather than the world seeing me as some hood rat," he wrote. JS
Playing for Success, south London
Cut: �50,000; one project manager, two assistants, 11 mentors and two volunteers will lose their jobs
This initiative has helped 660 nine- to 14-year-olds a year to improve their numeracy, literacy and technology skills in the London boroughs of Merton and Sutton, costing the two councils �50,000 annually. It is now being stopped entirely in Wimbledon, Tooting and Mitcham.
Using sport as a theme, teachers and tutors help young people ? many of whom are demotivated at school ? to brush up on basic skills out of school hours at venues such Wimbledon's All England Lawn Tennis Club and Tooting and Mitcham United Football Club, where they make films and cartoons.
The scheme, which will end next week, had been running for eight years in Wimbledon and more than four years in Tooting and Mitcham.
Peter Walker, cabinet member for education at Labour-run Merton council, says central government cut the authority's budget by 25%. "We have had to impose the coalition government's cuts and we hate doing it. We have children in care and children with special needs as well as a growing demand for places at our primary schools." JS
Newham Asian Women's Project, east London
Cuts: �22,000
This project, founded in 1987, provides a raft of support services for South Asian women who are victims of domestic abuse. The NAWP service encompasses violence prevention, early intervention and direct provision, including safe and emergency housing. The project learned recently that �22,000 of government funding, which supports the NAWP adult counselling service, will cease at the end of the month.
The counselling service, one of the few language-specific counselling schemes available in the region, involves 12 sessions of face-to-face therapeutic counselling for up to 200 women a year, about 13% of NAWP's client base.
NAWP director Baljit Banga, says: "We have got a very high number of high-risk cases we are dealing with: women who are at risk of suicide, women who are experiencing extreme trauma related to domestic abuse. That is our client base. There is an assumption that women will simply move on to other services, but actually that really does not happen. When they don't have access to services, they withdraw from services altogether." KS
Youthreach youth counselling service, south London
Cut: �118,000 (45%)
Youthreach is a perfect "big society" model: the charity operates an early intervention scheme, run mainly by trained volunteers, working with children suffering from anxiety, depression and sleep disorders, and young people who self-harm. It aims to nip problems in the bud before they develop into more serious and expensive mental health issues.
The funding cut, which will see it shut down completely, comes at a time of rising demand. "We are having to turn people away," says Maria Day, the charity's director. It worked with more than 350 children this year and had to refuse another 260.
Local NHS mental health teams have described Youthreach as a service they "can't manage without". But the loss of its core funding from Greenwich council, equivalent to 45% of its total budget, is a hammer blow. After 1 April, its meagre reserves will keep its doors open for three months at most and then it will shut. Its young clients will be diverted to already overstretched youth mental health services.
Day says: "We were told by the council at Christmas to expect a 40% cut. We could have lived with that, because it would have kept us going for another year and given us time to raise money. But not a 100% cut [in council funding]. This is a tragic loss for the young people." PB
Tower Hamlets council help for teachers
Cut: �808,000
Support for secondary and primary school teachers is being cut from 31 March, with 9.5 posts being lost from secondary school support ? amounting to a cut of about �250,000 ? and another nine from primary school support, which equates to about �558,000.
The secondary school cut is in part connected to the Labour government's decision to abandon its "national strategies" programme two years ago. This was introduced in 1998 with a daily literacy and numeracy hour for all primary schools. It cost the government �100m a year and was run by Capita, which provided teaching materials and staff training to improve teaching across schools.
The national strategies programme has now been wound down and loses all of its funding as of 31 March. Tower Hamlets said it had had to find �72m of savings over the next three years.
Claire Lovelock, from Tower Hamlets, who has a seven-year-old in a local primary school, says she is disgusted by the move. "They are mucking up people's chances. I don't understand why they have to make so many cuts." JS
CSV Vibe NHS hospital volunteer project, Sidcup, south London
Cut: �98,000 (100%)
Hundreds of young people have given up their time to help stroke patients on this pioneering volunteer scheme over the last two years, enriching the quality of care offered by the hospital. The Vibe project involves young people ? most of whom want to pursue a career in the health service ? working alongside nurses and doctors at Queen Mary's hospital in Sidcup, part of South London Healthcare NHS trust.
They devise activities to encourage communication and speech, set up art projects, help new patients find their way around the unit and encourage conversation.
The trust has nothing but praise for the volunteer teams, which were organised by the Community Service Volunteers organisation. It was funded by the V youth volunteering agency, itself facing drastic cuts.
Volunteer Fiona Anderson, 22, says the scheme helped her develop confidence and skills and "helped bridge the gap between old and young people".
Interviewed about the scheme by the Guardian 18 months ago, former stroke patient Frank Lafferty says the volunteers had won him over with their enthusiasm: "They taught me to speak again properly. It makes me feel young. Dare I say it, they bring brightness to the day." PB
Artsdepot, North Finchley, London
Cut: �194,000 (100% of council funding, 30% of grants income)
The multi-disciplinary arts venue is in the traditional Conservative heartland of Finchley, represented for more than 30 years by Margaret Thatcher. When Labour briefly controlled the council, artsdepot was conceived, opening in 2004.
Nobody disputes it is a success story. It's busy and popular. Without it, there would be no professional arts provision in Barnet.
Director Nigel Cutting says: "It is frustrating because we finally won round a lot of those people who were against the place. They like what we do. The council have said they want us to continue in to the future. They just don't want to have to pay for it."
Asked if the cut, taking effect on 1 April, would mean job losses and a reduction in what is put on, Cutting says: "yes and yes".
"We are in the process of what you might call a robust remodelling exercise." says Cutting. "Artsdepot remains very much alive and open, although in terms of output there may be smaller risks and less often. There will, of course, be a balancing act." MB
Haringey Advisory Group on Alcohol, north London
Cut: �455,000 (40%)
HAGA, the only alcohol project in the borough, helps 1,000 problem drinkers a year, plus their partners and children. But it is having to drastically scale back its services after losing �455,000 in grants from Haringey council.
The group's day centre, used by about 325 of the most chronically addicted clients, will in future be able to accommodate only 20 instead of 50 people at a time, as it is losing two staff. Saturday opening ? a lifeline for clients who find the weekends a temptation to drink ? ends this Saturday. A specialist domestic violence worker is being made redundant, as is the Polish-speaking worker who helps local Poles, and the education, training and employment worker who helps people with addiction problems get back to work.
Support for families and children is also disappearing, and help for street drinkers and clients seen at home is also being scaled back. "There is nowhere else for people with alcohol problems to go in Haringey," says Gail Priddey, HAGA's chief executive. "We are extremely worried about the consequences for problem drinkers and their families, as are they. We have been advised to send them back to their GPs or A&E, if appropriate, or children and family social services. Nightmare." DC
The House of Commons, Westminster
Cut: �12m (5.25%)
Many MPs will find it hard to notice the cuts the Commons is facing, most of which will simply have the effect of dragging some of the institution's archaic practices into the 21st century. They include saving more than �1m a year by discontinuing the printing of question papers and select committee evidence that for centuries have been meticulously produced every day parliament has sat.
Post office counters within the Commons are to be closed on Saturdays and one hour earlier through the week, while external deliveries will be reduced from four to two a day. The telephone switchboards will close between 8pm and 8am and the few remaining pager services, which dominated MPs' communications throughout the 1990s, will be decommissioned. Last week, facilities officers went round the back-office corridors removing every other lightbulb in an experiment to reduce the electricity bill. PC
The Rose Theatre, Kingston upon Thames
Cut: �108,000 (25%)
The three-year-old Rose, described by its emeritus director Sir Peter Hall as "a perfect acting space", gets no Arts Council money, leaving it dependent on box office and grants from the local authority and Kingston University.
The council annual grant was �600,000 with �200,000 deducted for rent ? but the balance, already budgeted for, has been slashed from April, to �292,000. The theatre gets �300,000 a year from the university, but that agreement expires this year.
Artistic director Stephen Unwin says: "Both stakeholders get huge benefits from the Rose, as does the town. An academic study showed that the Rose brought �6m over five months into the local economy. As for the future, well, we're working hard on the budget. And, yes, probably fewer productions. We're doing everything we can to keep ticket prices down."
Their cheapest seats are �5 cushions on the floor, but they're struggling to fill the theatre on week nights. Unwin directed As You Like It, which closes this weekend: he will then give away a tonne of topsoil from the set to a local school, resisting the temptation to set up in the neighbouring market place and sell it. MK
Northern England
Cut: �194,000 (100%)
On Thursday 31 March at 9pm, East Leeds leisure centre, at the heart of the Halton Moor estate, will close for the last time. As well as sports, it plays host to a number of community activities. East Leeds residents have put together a 2,000-name petition opposing the closure and have succeeded in getting an independent council scrutiny board watchdog to look into the decision to shut it.
The area the centre serves is largely deprived, and there is local anger that the estate is losing one of its last remaining resources, as well as concern that the loss of facilities could lead to increased antisocial behaviour from local youngsters. Local resident Dave Martin says: "The council's proposing to take away what few facilities we still have. You would be closing one of the best amenities in east Leeds. There's been no consultation over this, I've no idea how the council has reached its decisions." JB
Community family support workers, Oldham
Cut: �700,000 (100%)
Twenty-two community workers have been running family support sessions in Sure Start centres in Oldham, one of England's neediest boroughs. They give advice on nutrition and exercise for very young children and their families, offer tips on early parenting, run baby yoga and massage classes and support families either in groups or individually.
But all 22 are being made redundant next week, so the service is disappearing. Oldham council has withdrawn the �700,000 annual grant it gives NHS Oldham to provide the service.
Anne Longfield, chief executive of the charity 4Children, said: "Local authorities have very difficult spending decisions to make. But when reshaping services and making efficiencies, councils must stretch every sinew to protect the vital frontline services that families rely on."
NHS Oldham itself has made �18m of savings in this financial year as part of the national drive to save �20bn by 2015. So far, it has frozen vacancies and recruitment, cut use of agency staff and consultants, limited the prescription of certain drugs and restricted operations deemed to be "not of great health benefit", including varicose veins, grommets, wisdom teeth and joint replacements. DC
South Tyneside Churches Key Project
Cut: �100,000
The project is handing out more food parcels than ever before: in 2009, it distributed 49; in 2010, this increased to 150.
The Key Project, which started 20 years ago following the death of a young man who was sleeping rough in South Shields town centre, provides supported accommodation, training and education for homeless 16- to 25-year-olds. It also offers emergency housing for young homeless people and help for families whose children have left home because of breakdown in relationships. Referral numbers for its housing services have doubled in a year.
But cuts amounting to tens of thousands of pounds threaten its work. It has already made two staff redundant and another two leave at the end of March. The immediate effect is a scaling-back of the number of young people it can help ? from 42 to 27 for one of its services.
Ross Allen says: "We have lost funding for night support workers, worth �30,000. Supporting People has been reduced by �12,000 last year and �47,000 from April. Targeted Support Fund has ended ? �13,239. Future Jobs Fund has also ended ? �2,267. We may have to cut staff even further as the squeeze continues." RB
Maplehome, Pensall House, Poulton House, Meadowcraft, Fernleigh care homes, the Wirral, Merseyside
Cut: �2.7m
Five care homes will be closed on the Wirral by the Conservative/Liberal Democrat-controlled borough council as part of its �50m spending cuts. Four will close on 31 March, with the exception of Fernleigh, which is to remain open "while options are considered". Closure will save �2.7m.
Maplehome provides respite for adults with learning difficulties, while Fernleigh is a respite service for adults with mental health problems. Staff at the homes have been offered voluntary redundancy. The remainder will be redeployed.
Conservative council leader Cllr Jeff Green says: "Respite care in Wirral will in the future be delivered to exactly the same and wherever possible to a higher standard. We're rolling out personal budgets to the people who receive care. This will give people and their carers greater choice and control over the social care services they receive."
But Gwen Seller, chair of Wirral Mencap, says: "The speed of implementation of the closures precludes any reasoned or meaningful discussion with service users and their families about how their needs will be met." DS
Leeson Project, Speke, Liverpool
Cut: �136,000
This Liverpool-based project has been running for nine years and sees about 200 women a year who are referred with postnatal depression (PND). The only scheme of its kind in the area, the Leeson Project offers holistic therapy, one-to-one counselling and group therapy for women with PND and their families. Referrals are made to the project by health visitors and local GPs.
Jointly funded by the government's parenting fund and Liverpool city council, the project faces closure next week after both strands of funding were cut. There are six staff who will lose their jobs.
Julie Rawlinson, the Leeson Project manager, says all those involved in the service are devastated at its impending closure. "The impact is going to be massive because we know there is a desperate need for the services," she says. "Mums are not going to be getting the treatment they need and there will be a knock-on effect for the children." KS
Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse
Cut: �283,000 (6.9% cut from Arts Council; 20% cut from city council)
The Everyman, established in 1964, helped the early careers of a formidable list of theatrical talent including Julie Walters, Pete Postlethwaite and Alan Bleasdale, while the Playhouse is much older, built in 1866 as the Star Music Hall. Liverpool city council announced an across-the-board cut of 20% to "cultural drivers", reducing spending by �91m.
Deborah Aydon, executive director of the Everyman and Playhouse, says: "The council has had a ferociously difficult job.
"Clearly the proposed cut to the cultural organisations is significant, coming as it does on top of reduced investment by the Arts Council and other bodies. The success, ambition and profile of Liverpool's culture has had a huge positive impact on the city in recent years and it is one of our greatest strengths.
"We are hard at work, in collaboration with colleagues in the cultural and other sectors, to minimise the financial impact. We are passionate about our responsibility to education and community groups and will continue to produce theatre of international quality that the people of Liverpool can be proud of." MB
Cut: �16m (94%)
The small Northumbrian market town, which suffered serious flooding in 2008 when the River Wansbeck burst its banks, had been in line for a �17m flood defence scheme that would have protected 1,000 homes and businesses. But, despite the near �1m already spent on designs and consultations, the government's flood defence spending plans for April onwards provide no money for the scheme. Across the country, 274 other schemes have suffered the same fate.
The effect, says Alan Bell, chairman of the Morpeth Flood Action Group, whose home was flooded in 2008, is both psychological and financial. "It is devastating being flooded. Now every time it rains there are whole sections of the town that worry ? it is a constant. A lot of people, particularly the older ones, suffer from memories of the floods and they panic."
People are also suffering from rocketing insurance premiums, up 71% on average since before the 2008 flood. Without the new defences, Bell says: "I have great concerns abiout the viability of the town. If developers and businesses have to pay big premiums, they will pull out. This all has the effect of dragging things down." DC
Cut: �80,000 (16% of total funding; 34% of local authority funding)
A project that has helped more than 150 older people challenge issues including their hospital treatment and care assessments over the last three years will no longer exist from April. Funding for the Older Person's Advocacy project, alongside a scheme helping female asylum seekers, has been cut.
The centre, which has been providing free legal advice and representation to one of Britain's most deprived areas for more than 20 years, has already had its legal aid funding cut and, under government proposals, may lose all funding for employment law advice. In a community that includes a ward dubbed "Britain's welfare capital", it will result in many people having to represent themselves. Staff members have been campaigning against the legal aid proposals, which would result in more cuts to services and job losses.
Gill Quine, senior solicitor, says: "Our campaigning as a team has helped to keep morale up, but in the next few days we lose three valuable staff members whose qualifications, experience and commitment will be a great loss to the residents of Rochdale. If the proposed cuts do go ahead the law centre may be reduced to a very limited service." MWR
Trimdon Grange community centre, Stockton-on-Tees
Cut: �7,000 (40%)
Run by a small but dedicated group of local volunteers, the centre is a warm and welcoming base in a former mining village, world-famous when it was the centre of Tony Blair's constituency. The former school houses youth clubs, dance sessions, pensioners' get-togethers, and entertainment from taekwondo to clairvoyancy evenings.
But this all depends on part-time caretaker Jody Stephens, who opens up the building, and keeps things shipshape.
The new financial year sees her 90-day countdown to redundancy begin, after Durham county council included her �7,000 salary in its cuts. The money comes from an education tranche, and the centre's programme of "official" education takes it below the qualifying line.
Committee member Pamela Duddin says: "Without Jody, we're seriously worried about maintaining the centre to a standard which users will accept. We struggle to get committee members as it is ? we're all volunteers and most of us are out working all day, so we don't have any slack.
"The worst outcome would be that the centre might close. We lost funding for our main youth club this last year [�5,000] and we don't have much prospect of raising new funds. We're campaigning hard, locally and with our Facebook page , and our own county councillor has been fantastic, so we're certainly not giving up hope." MW
Public toilets, Piccadilly bus station, Manchester
Cut: �295,000
As part of its �109m cuts package, Manchester city council is shutting all public toilets other than those in Mount Street, next to the Town Hall Extension building, for which a charge will be imposed. All six sets of toilets that are closing have disabled access and facilities for baby changing.
The British Toilet Association, which campaigns for public facilities, says a "pretty grim" picture of cuts across the country is emerging. "A lot of local authorities seem to see it as a simple saving rather than thinking about it as a basic human need," says spokesman Mike Bone.
Manchester is encouraging pubs and cafes to open their toilets for general use, but Bone says those should be additional facilities rather than replacements. "They are unlikely to be fully regulated for the disabled, or to have changing facilities for children and babies, and many people don't want to go into licensed premises. Anyway, lots of councils have found commercial businesses reluctant to open up their facilities." DB
Cut: �35,000 (27%)
Building Bridges works at building understanding between different faiths and communities in Lancashire mill towns ? very successfully. Based in the centre of Nelson, it promotes the richness and rewards of diversity, while recognising the tensions and misconceptions that arise.
In spite of 12 years' work and a string of awards, its position looked grim a month ago. All four full-time staff faced redundancy with the demise of the North West Regional Development Agency, and its funding. That would have left just one part-timer; but campaigning has changed the situation.
"We now look like going down to three staff working four days a week, plus the part-timer," says Rauf Bashir, whose recent events included a children's talent show, featuring Islamic nasheed songs alongside hymns and readings from the Bible and the Qur'an. A flurry of talks with East Lancashire Prevent network and Pendle council brought in last-minute money, crucially from the Transition Fund managed by Big Lottery Fund.
"Things look much better than they did in February, but our work is bound to suffer from the cut. And this is an area with BNP councillors and more than 3,000 people voting for the party, where work like ours needs to be done." MW
Midlands and East Anglia
Refugee Action "one stop" advice service
Cut: �1.86m (62%)
Refugee Action provides advice to refugees on the asylum process and accessing legal help, and assists people facing racial harassment, domestic violence and destitution. It operates in Greater Manchester, Liverpool and Leicester, but is being forced to close offices in Nottingham, Bristol and Portsmouth.
"People who have fled war and persecution are often extremely traumatised and our case workers are equipped to address the issues they face and advocate on their behalf," says Dave Garratt, chief executive. "It is so important that people receive the right advice so that they experience a fair process and get the right decision. People seeking asylum rely on our specialist services to help them navigate their way through the asylum system. They often feel we are the only people they can turn to."
The consequences? "We are concerned that people may not get the specialist assistance they need, particularly when other services are also facing cuts. People seeking asylum are extremely vulnerable. Not only have they suffered trauma, loss and displacement but some don't speak English, have little understanding of the asylum system and are at serious risk of falling through the gaps." DS
Birmingham Citizens Advice bureaux
Cut: �600,000 (25%)
Citizens Advice in Birmingham has no money to provide an advice service from 1 April. Although Citizens Advice receives funding from other sources, including central government, the local authority fund pays for its "open door" advice service. Twenty staff support 150 volunteers across Birmingham ? 56,000 people were helped last year.
Yvonne Davies, chief executive of the Birmingham CAB, says the advisers helped 45,000 of those people to solve their own problems simply by providing the right information or directing them to the best source of help.
She says Birmingham council will be recommissioning advisory services in August, but the five-month gap in funding means 22 people will be made redundant, and thousands of vulnerable people will be left without an obvious source of help.
She says: "The council points to 128 other organisations in the area that provide advisory services. But these are very specialist, such as the care leavers support group. Many people will not regard themselves as qualifying for help from those organisations."
Davies says cheaper sources of advice, such as by phone and internet, is not suitable for everyone: "Even when people have phones, it doesn't mean they can use them to articulate ? or even realise ? the full extent of their problems." JI
MRC Community Action, Coalville, Leicestershire
Cut: �121,000 (27%) ? includes debts and benefits advice: �21,000; carers support: �32,159; community hub: �68,000
MRC has provided community services for 25 years, offering play, care, training, advice and furniture re-use. Last year, its debt advice worker dealt with 149 debts and helped 262 clients with benefits. Although there is still some money to deal with benefits problems, Dave Ahlquist, chief executive of MRC, says: "Requests for help with benefits usually come hand in glove with debt issues, and it will be almost impossible for the adviser to separate the two."
Scrapping of the carers support, run by two part-time workers, means that 400 unpaid carers will no longer receive peer support. The scheme helped Sheila, a mother diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, to get a grant for a special wheelchair that fits into the family car and is much easier for her husband ? her full-time carer ? to use.
Although the cuts from Leicestershire county council equate to 27% of MRC's income, Ahlquist says other cuts are still under consideration and it could lose up to 50%. "There doesn't seem to be any joined-up thinking in the way cuts are implemented across different departments and parts of the public sector," he says. JI
School crossing patrols, Suffolk
Cut: �174,000
Suffolk county council has approved a raft of cuts, including �174,000 a year for all 62 school crossing patrol services in the county. The council will continue funding until the end of the academic year, with schools then expected to come up with a viable plan to take on the service themselves.
One school in Ipswich will have its �3,000-a-year lollipop lady sponsored by a local estate agent.
The lollipop ladies and men see 80,000 children a year across roads in Suffolk and opponents say the service is too vital to be scrapped or left to chance.
Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, says: "Lollipop men and women are the human face of road safety. If we are to encourage children to walk more, then we need the reassurance and protection these familiar figures offer. But their demise is symptomatic of much deeper cuts being made to all aspects of maintaining safety on our highways as councils struggle with budgets." KS
KicFM youth radio station, Wolverhampton
Cut: �100,000 (100%)
KicFM ? Kids in Communication ? has given more than 4,000 teenagers in Wolverhampton the chance to learn how to be a radio producer, reporter or researcher over the last 11 years. But it is due to close on 1 April.
All the teenagers are volunteers and are trained to, among other things, use high-quality equipment to interview people, create playlists, read the news and edit audio. The station, which employs three full-time staff, is not-for-profit and aims to give young people a sense of achievement.
It has received an annual grant of �100,000 from V, the youth volunteering charity, for three years. But V has had its funds severely reduced by the government and it has stopped Kic's grant from the end of March.
Rob Smith, Kic's chief executive, says young people feel cuts like this are disproportionate and unwarranted, coming on top of the abolition of the education maintenance allowance and the rise in university fees. "We have an excellent track record of progression, taking young people from exclusion to employment. Measures proposed in the budget, such as expanding apprenticeships will not achieve that same result." JS
Weoley Castle Community Projects, Birmingham
Cut: �5,000 (15%)
Weoley Castle offers a support service for up to 30 local elderly people every day in a church hall. It provides company, conversation, a proper meal, entertainment and care. Many of those using the service would otherwise be alone during the day.
But a 15% cut ? from �33,000 to �28,000 ? means the project has had to make two part-time staff redundant and reduce the amount of day care offered, from five days to four days a week. It has had a significant impact on those who have nowhere to go on the fifth day and have little extra care at home.
The project has also had to send out first stage redundancy letters to all its day care staff as there is no word of future funding from 1 April.
Kate Pearson, a trustee of the Weoley Castle project, says: "It doesn't make any sense at all. We provide value for money. What happens to clients when we're not there? We're being honest about the pressures facing us, but the majority of our clients will find it hard to understand because they are in the early stages of dementia. But they have noticed the redundancies and a few are extremely anxious." RB
Cut: �110,000 (100%)
Under Warwickshire fire and rescue service's improvement plan, Warwick fire station is being run down for closure by September. The aim is to reinvest the savings in a new small fires unit and community fire safety work. The station is crewed by 12 "retained" or part-time firefighters, whose duties will be covered by full-time crews from Leamington, three miles away.
Mark Rattray, Fire Brigades Union secretary for Warwickshire, says the cut is being felt particularly keenly because Warwick is where the county brigade was founded. "It is also a very historic town, with lots of listed buildings, and the traffic congestion in the area has to raise concerns about covering it from Leamington."
Warwickshire, which is also closing Brinklow fire station, near Rugby, says it must modernise its services within available resources, but that no changes are being made before "key preventative measures" are put in place. DB
The Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent
Cut: �74,000
The begging boxes are out this week in the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, which holds the world's best collection of Staffordshire ceramics, and visitors will not miss them. "We have introduced a policy of pressure donations, with staff encouraging all visitors to give. There are some encouraging results, but if it doesn't bring in enough we have budgeted to introduce charges from July," spokesman Andrew Brunt says.
In an area of high deprivation, the �2.50 charge proposed for adults could cut visitor numbers by more than 40%, according to some estimates ? and would mean them paying to see the Staffordshire Hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold in Stoke, while Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (which jointly bought the treasure) remains free.
The museum will also lose one staff member. Stoke-on-Trent city council, which is implementing �35.6m cuts, theatening 700 jobs, is also proposing to sell or transfer Ford Green Hall and the Etruria Industrial Museum, saving a further �173,000, and cut the �150,000 grant to Ceramica in Burslem. Libraries in Fenton and Burslem will also close and the archives service will slash its hours. MK
Handel Street day centre for street drinkers, Nottingham
Cut: �270,000 (100%)
The doors of Handel Street "wet centre" for street drinkers have closed for good, one of the first in a series of staged cuts to homelessness services in Nottingham over the next few months that will see scores of hostel beds for vulnerable people axed and hundreds of support workers made redundant.
The centre, run by Framework Housing Association, was the first of its kind in the UK when it opened in 1991. Every year 1,000 drinkers and drug users used the centre, which had a visiting doctor, a psychiatric nurse and welfare rights advisors. "The centre met people's basic care needs," says Andrew Redfern, Framework's chief executive. "It fed them, they got a shower, clean clothes and medical help. It kept them alive, basically."
Nottingham city council says it had to make cuts of 40% to homeless services after the government reduced its allocation from the national Supporting People programme, which funds housing support for homeless people, care leavers, domestic violence victims, frail older people and mentally ill people. Framework believes the Labour-run council's cuts are disproportionate. Neighbouring Nottinghamshire county council, which is Tory-controlled, has also made swingeing cuts to hostels and housing support.
"The closure of Handel Street means street drinkers will have nowhere to go during the day," says Redfern. "The ones who have no home will sleep rough, and they won't be able to access care services. I suspect we will see more crime and antisocial behaviour, both from and towards these people." PB
South-west England
Cut: �4,724 (100% of funding from Devon county council)
The forum was founded in 1970 to champion conservation issues in Devon. Over the years it has formed study groups and working parties to investigate issues affecting the county's environment. But James Wyeth, its vice-chairman, says the trustees were now recommending that the organisation be dissolved. "Morale is shot," he says.
Among the issues the DCF has campaigned on is how to achieve sustainable forms of energy, in particular to combat climate change. It has prepared papers and studies about the future of farming and fishing. It has fought against the scale and impact of urban sprawl.
Affordable housing, the impact of a Severn barrage, population growth, waste management, even the plight of bees are all subjects it has worked on. Critics of the cut claim it undermines the county's green credentials.
Wyeth says: "I accept that if it's a matter of caring for a child or the environment, the child comes first. But it's sad that a forum that has existed for 40 years is being lost." SM
Dulverton and District Young People's Project, Exmoor
Cut: �12,000 (100% of funding from Somerset county council)
The club on the edge of Exmoor in north Devon is open five nights a week and has more than 50 members (the local middle school has a roll of only 150, an indication of how well the club is used). There are special nights ? one for girls and another for children who are carers or who are vulnerable in some way.
The two leaders become redundant from their council posts next week, but the trustees are trying to raise money to keep them at the club for as long as possible. An added complication is that the future of the council-owned building is unclear.
John Thorogood, the rector of Dulverton and part of a group seeking to keep the club open, says: "I know how valuable this sort of provision can be. Good youth clubs are about good relationships. Losing our youth club would mean that young people would lose the long-term relationships that are so valuable as they go through their teenage years."
The trustees are applying for grants and the action group is raising funds. The local drama group has given the profits of its murder mystery evening and local churches are donating proceeds from their Lent lunches. SM
Wales
Terrence Higgins Trust CHAPS Cymru project, Wales
Cut: �80,000 (100%)
HIV diagnoses among gay men in Wales are on the rise, but this national information and advice project for gay men has had its main funding from the Welsh assembly withdrawn. Annual funding of �80,000 was reduced to �30,000 last year, and will be cut completely by next week. The CHAPS project researches the HIV prevention needs of gay men, and develops and delivers campaigns and information for those at risk.
The funding cut means that from this year there will no longer be any national HIV campaigns for gay men. Neither will there be any up-to-date printed or electronic information for gay men. Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) Cymru has been left with �24,000 of funding from Cardiff and Vale University Health Board for HIV prevention in Cardiff itself.
Genevieve Edwards, executive director of communication and health improvement for THT, says the cut is short-sighted and risky. "It is not a huge amount of money but the impact on gay men in Wales will be huge. It is really going to add to the isolation for men who don't see HIV prevention here, who won't know if there is a syphilis outbreak. We can't warn about increasing rates of HIV. It is really dangerous." KS
Swansea University modern foreign languages department
Cuts: Seven language lecturers out of 26 will be "redeployed" into other posts in arts and humanities faculties
Foreign language lecturers at Swansea University expect to be told which of them will face redeployment next week. The university's executive is holding a meeting with the university council over its plans to cut teaching staff from 26 to 19 on 28 March. It says the department has been "overstaffed" for some time.
The proposals would result in cuts to French, German, Spanish and Italian, although two new Welsh-language posts would be created. A new modern languages and translation department would replace the previous department.
A briefing note written by the department's staff, which was sent to the Guardian, states that the changes are being carried out "with reckless haste and would have a devastating impact on the student experience".
"This will destroy a research-led department with an excellent reputation and make Swansea look insular and parochial," it says. The university says the restructure would lead to "a very small number of staff being redeployed ? while the majority would continue to be employed in a new modern languages unit that will teach French, German, Spanish and Italian." JS
Cut: �250,000 (100%)
They're emptying cupboards and clearing desks this week at the building in Abergavenny that is home to Gwent Theatre, a 35-year-old theatre in education company, which toured the south Wales valleys, including some of the most deprived areas in Britain.
Last June, as Arts Council Wales announced its cuts, Gwent Theatre learned "with incredulity" that its entire grant was going. All six permanent staff, from stage manager to artistic director Gary Meredith, will be out of work from the end of March.
In 2009-10, Gwent gave 220 performances for 14,213 young people in 219 schools, and employed 40 people over the year.
"It's sad ? and very worrying in the present climate ? for all of us losing our jobs, but it's heartbreaking for all the people we visited. We've had people on the phone who still can't believe it's really happening," Meredith says. "Once the grant was gone there was no real possibility of covering such a huge funding gap. There's a perception of Abergavenny as a relatively prosperous place, but that's certainly not true of many of the places we toured. In some, 80% of the pupils were on free school meals. It's a horrible week." MK
Scotland
Cut: �1m (100%)
Blindcraft's workforce, two-thirds of whom are registered disabled, have been handcrafting beds and mattresses since 1793, with customers including John Lewis and the nearby Edinburgh University student halls.
Last September, as part of a wider �90m cuts package, Edinburgh city councillors voted to close Blindcraft or reduce it to a three-day week. The 60-strong workforce, many accompanied by guide dogs and assistants, came out of the meeting willing to take a pay cut to ensure future generations of blind people in Edinburgh had a place to work.
On closer examination, many discovered they would be better off with severance packages and on benefits. Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray says: "This is a disgraceful decision and one that will haunt them. Edinburgh prides itself on how the city treats its most vulnerable residents and this fails the most basic test of fairness."
With the doors set to close in mid-April, Blindcraft's union leaders are lobbying MSPs for a reprieve. Edinburgh city council says it will not change its mind. Its economic development leader Tom Buchanan says: "The bottom line is the council is losing �1m a year by subsidising Blindcraft and that is just not sustainable in the current financial climate."
David Anderson, a Blindcraft employee for 14 years, says: "I've got David Cameron and Nick Clegg saying get off benefits and into work. But this council is putting me on to benefits. What chance have I got of getting a job in open employment?" MM
Follow this story at guardian.co.uk/edinburgh/blindcraft
Re-JIG: Recycling ? Jura Islay Group, southern Hebrides
Cut: �36,000 (66%)
Over the last 12 years, a small group of volunteers and part-time workers on the islands of Islay and Jura built up a recycling network as comprehensive as in many Scottish cities. They now face losing it entirely.
Since last April, Re-JIG has recycled or reused five tonnes of cans, 16 tonnes of steel, 19 tonnes of textiles, 24 tonnes of paper and cardboard, 36 tonnes of cans, bottles and cartons from the islands' 1,850 homes, as well as nearly 15 tonnes of furniture.
Most of this is sorted, cleaned and compressed on Islay. It has set up a shop to re-use "pre-loved" furniture and bric-a-brac.
Argyll and Bute council has begun a six-month review and is proposing to withdraw all its �36,000 funding, taking all recycling in-house and shipping all the waste off the island, says Dave Protherough, Re-JIGs project manager and sole full-time employee. A 66% cut risks the scheme's future.
"In my view it won't save them anything," he says. "We estimate it will take at least two articulated lorries a week in each direction, and anyone who knows the ferry timetable knows how much that will cost." SC
Cut: �1m (62%), including �125,000 for strategic services, �225,000 for induction service for new refugees, �651,000 for one-stop advice service
Alone among Britain's cities, Glasgow volunteered to house asylum seekers being dispersed from London. But it now faces an upsurge in destitution, absconding and homelessness among refugees after funding for its main advice service was cut by 62%.
An independent "one-stop" service run by the Scottish Refugee Council (SRC) will have its budget from the UK Border Agency cut by �651,000 from 1 April. It offered independent advice and advocacy, finding lawyers, solving housing disputes, dealing with the UK Border Agency, translating documents and tackling racist abuse.
At any time, Glasgow is home to between 2,500 and 3,000 refugees. The SRC has had to lay off five of its 12 advice workers and will dramatically restrict its advice services to "life-threatening issues". It is likely to stop advising on housing issues, and will cut its drop-in service by half, stop routine one-to-one clinics and move to telephone advice, although many of its clients have very poor English.
John Wilkes, its chief executive, says: "I think it could lead to more destitution, it could lead to more homelessness. That's my fear. The things that help keep these people in the system, we just won't be able to do." SC
Cut: �28,000
Following a string of attacks on women in Glasgow in recent months, Strathclyde Police this week set up a special rape investigation unit staffed by 10 officers. Yet the city's rape crisis centre is having to curtail the work it does across Glasgow following funding cuts to several parts of its service.
A well-regarded youth prevention programme will have to be cut back after a third of the budget ? �8,000 ? was withdrawn by a local council agency. And the centre has lost �20,000 community planning partnership funding for a dedicated worker in the east end of the city.
Centre manager Isabelle Kerr says the cuts would impact on those who needed help most. "The impact is that it is denying services to survivors. It is as simple as that. The cuts will ultimately deny services to survivors." KS
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland Music Therapy Trust
Cut: 100%
From 1 April, the trust's budget will disappear, and about 600 young people with severe learning difficulties ? many of whom have no verbal communication skills ? will lose out.
The Northern Ireland Music Therapy Trust, which was established in 1990 by Dr Michael Swallow, is the main provider for clinical music therapy in the province. Children are encouraged to express themselves using voice, percussion instruments and melodic instruments such as pianos and guitars.
Fiona Davidson, executive director of the trust, says: "The threatened complete loss of this service from April will have a major impact on this already disadvantaged and vulnerable group of children and young people. Music therapy has become an essential part of their healthcare. It is hard to understand how removing this vital, frontline service will really address the budgetary shortfall." HM
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/mar/25/public-sector-cuts-where-will-they-hit
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