Updates for week starting 28 February are at the end of this post.

Updates for week starting 21 February are further down this post.

Updates for Thursday 17 February are further down this post.

First post – Tuesday 15 February:

Bit surprised by the national political and press silence on the battles that are raging at council meetings this week…

As noted here, councils around the country have begun to agree and sign off budgets for the 2011-2012 financial year. Most will complete in the next two weeks. Council budgets must be set by March 2011.

These are budgets for the first year of much-reduced grants settlements from government – which means they incorporate the first wave of council service cuts.

Public council meetings to agree these budgets this week have been feisty and memorable – and it’s still only Tuesday. There are still several weeks’ worth of meetings to go.

It seems extraordinary that the public outrage at these local service cuts isn’t being followed more closely by the national press, or championed publicly by the Eds Miliband and Balls.

Councils are cutting services to very vulnerable groups. The Barnet protest last night (see below) included people who were trying to save the onsite warden service in sheltered housing. Service cuts in Cambridgeshire include a special education unit for children on the autism spectrum who couldn’t cope in mainstream schools. On Thursday, parents of disabled children in Lancashire will protest about council plans to introduce charging for care and to tighten care eligibility criteria.

Once these budgets are agreed and voted through by councils, it will no longer be a matter of fighting cuts. It’ll be a matter of fighting to have funding and services returned.

Since last night, we’ve had:

Barnet: members of the council’s cabinet committee walked out of last night’s public meeting when residents started to shout councillors down during a cuts debate. The council had received an unprecedented number of questions from residents who wanted to grill the council on cuts proposals, but the cabinet only allowed 30 minutes for questions. Residents took this badly – Barnet Unison reports that people quickly realised there wasn’t going to be time for all public questions to be heard.

Other points of interest:

Local reporter @adamlangleben tweeted that the council tried to stop him tweeting the meeting, and taking pictures and filming. Barnet Unison has a list of tweets from the meeting (the tweets include cuts decisions and service-charging decisions).

A Hendon Times report from the meeting.

Norfolk county council:

Police and security were called and debate suspended as protestors disrupted a county council meeting from the public gallery. Two people were arrested and 12 were thrown out.

Councillors voted through a budget that will cut services and jobs to meet a grant reduction of £29.44m. Council leader Derrick Murphy said residents could expect to notice the impact of some cuts in as little as six weeks’ time.

Cambridgeshire county council:

One person was arrested and other protestors thrown out of a council meeting to agree spending cuts to the tune of about £50m. Another protest is planned by Unison today. This is the same council we visited last month to talk to parents of children who had been told that they would lose their special needs education unit.

Update Thursday 17 February:

Lancashire county council:

Just talked to a Lancashire man who has an adult son with severe disabilities. Lancashire county council agreed vicious cuts proposals today as it voted through cuts to the tune of £179m. The changes include new and increased charges for care for adults with disabilities, stricter eligibility criteria for care, and cuts to respite care for children with disabilities (there’s a full list of cuts here – it’s pretty worrying and really does target people with disabilities).

He said families were thrown out of the public gallery at the town hall for yelling at the council – “the first time we’ve had police at the town hall for years.” He also said that the battle with the council wasn’t over. “I was talking to the other families and we will object. When they start bringing this in, we will object.”

News report from Lancashire with campaigner Angela Murphy.

Lancashire Telegraph report with reference to police in council chambers.

Outstanding blog by the parent of the young disabled man. Also, his report from the meeting.

Islington:

Reports coming in of police throwing people out of the public gallery as people protest against £50m of cuts. Will update this as more information comes through. See @Jessica_Asato’s tweets – Labour councillor at the meeting.

Update: a good report from PCS Euston on the protests, with photos of protestors being removed by the police. Islington council has a £40m reduction in its government grant for 2011 -2012 and expects reductions of about £22m in the four years after that. The Islington council proposed budget is here.

Another good report from faultythinking – includes video of police scuffles with protestors in the public gallery.

Cambridge:

Reports from Cambridge of police removing protestors from a council meeting and journalists being banned. More on this as reports come through.

Report here.

Southampton:

Staff and protestors stormed a meeting this evening as councillors voted through council-wide salary cuts.

Report from Southampton.

North Devon:

Heated exchanges between campaigners and council leader John Hart at County Hall as the public challenged the council’s cuts proposals with dozens of questions. Hart was asked by a member of North Devon anti-cuts whether cuts will result in lives being damaged and lost as a result of the cuts. Protestors walked out of the meeting.

North Devon anti cuts has a full report. (h-t @jwelowe).

Dorset county council:

Protestors marched through Dorchester as the council agreed about £31m of savings that are likely to lead to 500 redundancies.

This is an odd one, because Dorset was one of the councils that was thought to have done well out of Pickles’ settlements, and to even have made a small gain. By January, though, councillors were claiming that the council faced an estimated a funding gap of about £57m for three years. Residents were trying to save 12 local libraries that the council earmarked for closure.

Report from the march

Tuesday 22 February

Elderly protestors clash with security outside Southwark town hall as security guards prevent them from entering a council meeting. The council made £50m of cuts, including local pensioners’ clubs. Here’s a short video where some of the protestors talk about the cuts and their views of Labour councils and the cuts.

Bournemouth:
Anticuts protestors bail up council leader Peter Charon outside Bournemouth town hall before a meeting to decide council tax and budgets.

Report with footage.

Wednesday 23 February

Isle of Wight:

Protestors gathered at the town hall and the council approved one of the most austere budgets in its history. To save £17.8m in 2011 – 2012, councillors agreed cuts to adult social care, libraries, public toilets, tourist information centres, lifeguards and the Wightbus service.

Report here

Leeds:

Police were called when demonstrators stormed the council chamber as Leeds city councillors met to agree a £90m cuts programme.

Dozens of protesters waving placards and chanting forced the meeting at Leeds Civic Hall to be delayed by 90 minutes.

Report here

Lambeth:

Protestors push past council officials and security to occupy the town hall and set up a people’s council. Lambeth councillors left the council chambers and voted budget cuts through elsewhere in the building.

Report from the occupation (includes footage)

Guardian report about the occupation

Darlington:

Protestors attended a council meeting to agree a cuts programme of £19.5m over the next four years. About 287 jobs will be lost initally. Darlington is one of the few councils that is considering plugging budget gaps by raising council tax – not this year, but there are proposals for three per cent increases in the following three years.

Report here.

Northumberland county council:
More than 300 people – council workers, trade union members, pensioners’ and Labour activists – demonstrated outside County Hall in Morpeth as the (Liberal Democrat) council agreed a budget that will see 1000 jobs loss and services for the elderly and young people cut.

Unison claimed the council spent £1000 a day on consultants to advise on cuts.

Report here.

Thursday 24 February:

Notts county council:
Hundreds of Nottinghamshire county council workers walked out on strike today to protest against proposed cuts of £87m to the council’s annual budget.

The council met to discuss the budget cuts today. Unison says that it presented an alternative budget to the council that would have made the required savings without job or service cuts. The union says the council ignored the alternative.

Report here.

Shropshire county council:

Shropshire agrees a cuts package of £80m. Among services to be cut is The Grange – a daycentre for people with disabilities that has been at the centre of a national row about service priorities.

Report here.

Leicester:

Protestors are thrown out of the public gallery after heckling the Labour council over its plans to cut £100m in services over the next four years. There had been rowdy demonstrations outside the town hall before the meeting.

Report here.

Monday 28 February

Camden:

Hundreds of protestors battled with police as the public was denied entry to a meeting where councillors agreed about £100m of cuts. Banned from the meeting, protestors blockaded Euston Road.

Report here.

1 March 2011:

Barnet:

Police and security guards took cameras and bags (including mine) from members of the public as Barnet clamped down on the filming and recording of public meetings. Questions have been asked about the heavy-handed behaviour of some of the security guards, who appeared to overrule police decisions to allow members of the public access to the council chambers. The council agreed a budget cut of about £29m.

Birmingham:

Protestors picket Birmingham city council as the council agrees a £212m budget cut and scraps about 2400 jobs.

Report here.