Council axes £50 school uniform voucher scheme

A council has scrapped plans to give every family in a Merseyside borough a £50 voucher towards the cost of school uniforms.

As the new school year gets under way, St Helens Council leader George Woodward said the Reform UK-led authority was pulling the scheme, which was announced earlier this year by the previous Labour administration.

In a post on the council's website, he said the offering was among several initiatives "not being taken forward" in a bid to save the council £2 million.

Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram told BBC Radio Merseyside the decision would hit families who were struggling.

The voucher initiative had been approved by Labour, who lost control of the authority in May's local elections.

Woodward said it was one of four proposals announced by the previous administration which the council was pulling as a result of a review of spending to ensure the authority was operating cost-effectively and within budget.

Woodward said "times are tough for residents, communities, and businesses" and the council, "which has been unable to operate within-budget for four years in a row, instead dipping into reserves to balance the books".

Rotheram said: "Fifty quid is not enough but it was the Labour council's way of saying we recognise that there is a cost of living crisis and we are trying to help you.

"This would have gone down really well and helped families through what is a very expensive period - getting your kids to school and finding school uniform."

The other schemes being scrapped are free town centre parking, bringing back the park ranger service, and a Pride in Place fund, he said.

Woodward said they would continue to review alternative options regarding parking charges and seek opportunities for better changes that would have a positive impact for residents and businesses.

He said the green spaces team "has told us they would prefer to be able to work more flexibly and support more open spaces in the borough, rather than under a rigid park ranger model".

"Instead, we're investing in enhancing the fly-tipping action team to clean up our borough," he added.

The authority has also re-introduced the Councillor Community Fund to provide hyper-local small grants for community groups, giving every councillor up to £2,000 to invest in community projects, he added.

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