Council Budget – a missed opportunity!

Budget Speech by Cllr. Bob Sullivan – Leader of the Liberal Democrats in Waltham Forest

Liberal Democrat alternative budget putting millions into jobs and businesses and Children’s Services and re-opening Harrow Green Library

 

Mr Mayor, I’d like to start by thanking our officers and finance department for helping us to produce a budget that is legal and addresses the financial problems that the borough faces.

As I said last year, we did not support the front-loading of local government budget cuts and at that time fellow Lib Dems and I wrote to the Minister to oppose this because of its potential impact on services.

But thanks to the Legacy of debt left by the previous Labour government, we are where we are. Recent statements by Labour’s ‘two Eds’ make it clear that none of the three main parties are proposing to reverse any of the spending cuts to local government or elsewhere.

Despite this I don’t doubt that the Waltham Forest Labour Party will continue to blame the Coalition for every painful choice that has had to be made this year. But just a short glance at their budget, which I hope every cabinet member has now done since they managed to approve the wrong fees and charges before Christmas, will show you that despite the cuts Labour are storing up money and ignoring the needs of local residents.

In contrast we’ve identified savings and reserves that could help residents now, investing in jobs and growth and softening the cuts to our Children’s services.

We support the government’s offer of a 2 and a half percent grant to freeze our council tax, which has given the council flexibility this year including an additional reserve fund as we had already planned for a council tax freeze.

Two years into this coalition government and we can now see how Liberal Democrat influence has helped Waltham Forest where we need it most:

Despite the administartion being in denial, the facts are as follows:

  • The Lib Dems’ pupil premium has delivered 4.8 million pounds to help 10,000 pupils from low-income families in Waltham Forest.

  • Lib Dem Ministers have delivered 25 million pounds this year to help with Waltham Forests growing school population. The second highest allocation in the country.

  • Lib Dem Ministers have improved childcare for disadvantaged two year olds, helping an estimated 1000 struggling Waltham Forest families with funding for 15 hours free childcare a week.

  • Lib Dem Ministers have given new powers to councils allowing Waltham Forest to scrap its second homes discount, which could potentially save us 149,000 pounds a year.

  • Lib Dem Ministers introduced the winter support fund to give an extra 635,000 pounds to help with preventative adult social care over the winter months.

  • And Lib Dem minister Vince Cables initiative has created 1,500 apprenticeships for Waltham Forest.

Moving on to our budget savings –

Firstly, we’ve proposed savings in the tax payer subsidy to the trade unions. I see the Tories have woken up to this as well. Last year we proposed a 25% cut in line with cuts to the rest of the authority. Since Labour took no action on this we are now proposing a 50% cut to help protect vital frontline services.

We would expect this to be cut completely in future years as the unions should ultimately be using their own funds to support their members, not simply because it is fairer to our council tax payers but also because the unions themselves should be seen to be totally independent from the council.

This would allow them to hold the executive to account properly and avoid the perception that Labour councillors and union officials are in each others’ pockets.

Secondly, we would cut further into our corporate communications budget as it is an extravagance to still be spending £1 million a year on this when other core services are being cut. Again we would expect to reduce this further in future years.

Thirdly, we would look to reduce the money spent on subscriptions and on junior cabinet posts, which again are a luxury given the current budget reductions.

We have looked into the reserves and concluded that they are too high compared with the overall budget and in particular in areas where action should already have been taken. For example on 2.3 million pound equal pay reserve. This process should have been completed some time ago and maintaining a large balance here means either that Labour has failed to address the issue and needs to act on this now, or that it is storing up money for something else and trying to hide it.

As we know, most of the cuts have been front-loaded, so in order to realise the necessary savings the majority of restructuring and redundancies have gone through the system already. So the restructuring reserve of 5.2 million and the redundancy reserve of 4.3 million are too high and should be reduced.

Then we come to the Insurance reserve, which last year was 900,000 pounds and is now mysteriously 2.1 million pounds. Is someone in the Council worried about a spate of council induced misdemeanors sweeping the Borough or are they storing money away for something else?

Given the cuts to the budget overall, we should also be able to cut our working balance accordingly. So we have taken 1 million pounds for investment in businesses and jobs for the Borough.

Overall our proposals would be prudent, using only 15% of our reserves this year for investment, leaving a significant financial buffer for the future but at the same time investing in the things that matter most to our residents now.

In a year when thousands of people will be coming to this Borough for the Olympics we should be making the most of our high profile and showing our best face to employers and business.

We are also prioritising services for our Borough’s most vulnerable residents:

  • In Children’s Services we would invest a million pounds. As councillors will know, in the latest Ofsted report, the council’s services for looked after children were one of only 2 authorities in the country to be described as poor. The lowest rating possible for any council service. But despite this, Labours planned cuts are still going ahead.

  • Our money would also provide funds for additional respite care services and programmes to deal with sexual health and teenage pregnancy, the latter being one of the highest in the country.

 

As a Liberal Democrat I don’t believe we should accept these failures in Children’s Services. As a corporate parent I don’t believe we should be content with working towards a service that is only adequate, and as a father and grandfather, I think that the Labour administration’s failure to provide for our looked after children is disgraceful and someone should be held accountable.

Our targeted investment would send a signal that we are not going to put up with a poor service and will not be content with aiming for an adequate service. It would show that we are ambitious for our young people, ambitious for our services and would set us on course to provide an outstanding service sooner rather than later.

We have also included money for both Adult and Children’s services to deal with the transitional arrangements when a looked after child reaches the age of 18 but is still dependent on council services. This was thoroughly investigated by a scrutiny panel last year. The report was highly acclaimed by officers and cabinet members – and then ignored.

We have found £600,000 to invest in Adult Services to give a boost to respite care, carers grants and mental health grants, which have been hard hit in recent years.

These should be important areas and red lines for those of us who are in politics to defend the most vulnerable. I’m surprised that the Labour party haven’t gone further in these areas and it’s again fallen to Liberal Democrats to stand up for those in the Borough with the weakest voice but the strongest need.

Labour have come up with a few good ideas like sprucing up Leyton High Road and the Big Six events but where is their ambition? Where are the ideas? Where is the investment in our Borough’s future?

It is one of the great scandals in our country that one in five young people between the ages of 16-24 is currently out of work, some 250,000 of those for over a year. As former Labour Minister, David Miliband, said recently this is not a problem that has come about overnight it has been increasing steadily for over 10 years. A recent report by ACEVO, a third-sector group, puts the potential cost to the taxpayer at tens of billions of pounds over the next decade if this isn’t tackled.

Here in Waltham Forest, we have been identified as a ‘youth unemployment hotspot’, with 1 out of every 8 young people on jobseekers allowance – twice the national average! – this isn’t good enough.

This isn’t just a problem now in these stringent times, the previous Labour government and now this Labour council have failed to provide our residents with the skills and experience needed for more than a decade – the Olympic organisers have said as much. They wanted to hire more young people from Waltham Forest but they say they couldn’t because the young people did not have basic literacy, numeracy and trade skills.

The UK Government has already taken welcome steps to deal with this, through its huge investment in the Deputy Prime Minister’s ‘Youth Contract’ and the apprenticeship programme. As a result, the number of apprentices here in the borough has almost tripled since 2009 to over 1,500. The scandal is that our Council has managed to take on only 9 apprentices.

But we as a council could and should be doing more to help. With this in mind, we have set aside £2,000,000 for apprenticeships with local businesses to train our young people and prepare them for the world of work. This money would not only give up to 400 young men and women the chance to improve their skills base but it would also benefit the local economy and businesses.

But what about the thousands of other resident who are still struggling to find work? What about those who have recently lost their job? What about the long-term unemployed or older people who are now finding their savings don’t cover everything and need extra income?

We propose increasing the councils meagre £120,000 investment for getting people back to work by putting an extra £1,000,000 of the Council’s working balance into helping these people find meaningful employment. Why should we as a Council keep this money back when it could be put to good use and spent assisting the people we represent?

There are already organisations out there doing this work but they need financial support and local leadership to deliver. With high unemployment levels in this Borough investing now has to be a priority.

We must also consider the businesses where people will find work. We all know how tough the current economic climate is for business, especially Small and Medium Enterprises, both here in Waltham Forest and across the country, with a lack of confidence, rising prices and squeezed margins pushing them into making redundancies and even facing bankruptcy. These enterprises are vital as they not only serve our local community but are more likely to hire people from the borough, spend their money locally and encourage social cohesion. That is why in our budget we have earmarked a total of £500,000 for business support and mentoring, to assist local business and ensure that they are shoring up their balance sheets, creating not cutting jobs, and generating wealth here in Waltham Forest.

We don’t need the government to step in, we can do it ourselves. Working with social enterprises like Biz Fizz, Waltham Forest could be investing in programmes that deliver increased business start-up and survival, job creation and improved incomes for local entrepreneurs and their employees.

We already run a graduate scheme here at the council. But with graduates finding it harder and harder to get work, why not expand it? Yes we’re having to cut jobs elsewhere but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be investing in tomorrow’s talent. The Local Government Association run a scheme with some impressive statistics, which offers in-built support for both graduates and managers.

As I’ve said already, our Borough has a problem with youth unemployment and we should be using a multi-pronged approach to tackle it now. Just because times are hard it doesn’t mean we should be ducking these issues, in fact just the opposite, we should be tackling them head on and investing now whilst we can and building on the good work the government is already doing.

This administration could’ve taken just a small fraction of their reserves and paid for up to 400 extra apprenticeships for young people.

They could be investing in business support and mentoring.

And they could be protecting the most vulnerable by investing in our struggling Children’s Services. But they haven’t!

With Liberal Democrats in administration, this Borough went from being a failing authority to a four star authority and one of the most improved boroughs in the country. Two years on with no Liberal Democrats to provide the ideas, drive and dedication, Labour have got lazy and failed our looked after children, failed our local businesses by not paying them on time, despite promising to do so, failed in their diligence by approving the wrong fees and charges and failed our staff by paying 100 of them below the London Living Wage and tonight they have failed to deliver a budget that invests in our residents future.

Our budget is ambitious for our residents, ambitious for our businesses and ambitious for Waltham Forest,

And to that end Mr Mayor I ask the council to support our amendment.

LIB DEMS’ AMBITIOUS 2012 BUDGET IS AN OPPORTUNITY NOT TO BE MISSED

This year has again seen cuts to the council budget as a result of the government’s important deficit reduction programme.

In administration in 2009/10 the Lib Dems laid the foundations for the difficult decisions that have been made over the last two years to balance the Town Hall’s books.

The success of the cuts to back office functions alongside extra money from the government for the council tax freeze has created unexpected flexibility in the budget to soften the impact on local residents and invest in jobs and growth.

This year the Lib Dems have identified over £6 million in additional savings and reserves that could be used to help residents now, invest in local jobs and ease the cuts on Labour’s failing Children’s Services.

Lib Dem Leader Cllr Bob Sullivan said:

“As a Liberal Democrat I am appalled to see that Labour are still subsidising their trade union paymasters, they are still spending half a million pounds on a wasteful council newspaper and they are still spending a million pounds a year on press officers and PR.

“And not only that but they’re hoarding money for a pre-election spending spree in 2014, when they could be helping residents now.

“Waltham Forest Labour have spent millions of pounds of tax payers money on consultants but they’re not investing enough in local jobs, they’ve spent £3 million earmarked for the Olympics on fireworks and parties whilst increasing fees for local sports and youth services, and next year they’re spending £3 million in their ‘priorities fund’ but barely 4% of it is to tackle unemployment.

“Lib Dems have identified over £6 million in extra savings and hidden reserves that could be spent now on helping local residents: Investing up to £4 million in jobs and growth, softening the blow of cuts to our struggling Children’s Services, and investing in local services by reversing the cut to Chingford South and Harrow Green libraries.”

 

“Waltham Forest Labour are out of touch, out of steam and out of ideas. They should get their priorities right for residents, stop wasting money on vanity projects and PR and be ambitious for Waltham Forest by accepting the Lib Dem’s budget amendment next week.”

Colgrave Arms – planning application

Colegrave Arms

The Local Muslim organisation Cann Hall Dean and Education Trust (CHDET) have resubmitted their planning application to Waltham Forest Council to convert the Colegrave Arms into a mosque with local community facilities. 

Following the initial residents’ meeting in October 2010, the organisation hopefully, have now rectified any outstanding planning issues and, if agreed at a future Planning Committee, the former local pub will be occupied and serving the local community once again.

The layout of the building is now designed to have on the ground floor a female prayer hall, a male prayer hall, washrooms and an office. On the first floor will be a second male prayer hall together with a caretaker’s bedroom, a library, a teaching room and an office. On the second floor will be a two bedroom flat.

Liberal Democrat Councillor Liz Phillips would like to hear your views so that she can accurately represent local community feelings to the Planning Committee later this year. Please reply to Liz as soon as possible via the website or via her council email address of cllr.liz.phillips@walthamforest.gov.uk

The Council’s New Year Resolution should be to pay local businesses on time!

Figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats show that Waltham Forest Council have failed to meet their own targets for paying local businesses within 10 days for 7 out of the last 8 months. And they have only once met their targets for paying small businesses on time since last April 2011.

According to the Federation of Small Businesses the Government estimates that in 2008, 4,000 businesses failed as a direct result of late payment and it costs UK businesses £180 million in debt interest charges. The problem of late payment is not just a commercial one, but it is also ethically wrong. When large businesses or the public sector pay late, it can put small firms out of business.

Liberal Democrat Leader and Finance Spokesperson, Councillor Bob Sullivan said:

“This is a tough time for small businesses and these targets were set to try and help cash flow for local businesses in Waltham Forest.

“For some small businesses, being paid promptly can mean the difference between growing or standing still; between creating jobs or cutting them; between keeping the doors open or closing them for good.”

“It is unacceptable that the council is failing local businesses in this way. Officers and Cabinet members should use the new year to turn over a new leaf and pay local businesses on time in 2012.”

Fire Brigade 999 Service for Sale!

Residents in Waltham Forest will be put at risk if the Mayor’s plans to privatise Fire Brigade 999 call handling go ahead, warn the borough’s Liberal Democrat Councillors.

Conservatives on the London Fire Authority backed by Mayor Boris Johnson propose to contract out the Fire Brigade Control Room that handles over 200,000 emergency 999 calls a year. They intend to push their controversial plan through before voters get a say in next May’s Mayoral and London Assembly elections, when controversial Conservative LFEPA boss Cllr Brian Coleman risks being ousted.

Liberal Democrat Councillor Farooq Qureshi said:

“I was shocked to hear of this plan. It makes no sense to separate the people answering 999 calls from the rest of the Fire Brigade. There are no private companies with a decent track record in this highly specialised fire safety work. It will just end up costing more money as the Fire Brigade will need an army of staff to check the private call handlers are getting it right. This is all about Conservative dogma rather than what is best for local residents’ safety.”

The Fire Brigade’s Union is also strongly opposed to the privatisation plan.

Commenting on the sell off Liberal Democrat Candidate for Mayor of London, Brian Paddick said:

“As a former police chief I recognise that control rooms are an essential part of the emergency response. Privatising the fire brigade control room runs the risk of providing a second class service at a higher cost to the public.”

Liberal Democrat candidate for next Mayor of London

Brian Paddick campaigning for London

Former Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick has been reselected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London. The election is due to be held on 3rd May 2012, when Londoners will also be voting for the Greater London Assembly.

The Liberal Democrats believe that Brian’s experience is exactly what London needs right now, whether dealing with the aftermath of the riots or corruption in the Police, transport and housing.

Brian will be a credible alternative to Boris Johnson and the faded Ken Livingstone.

Harrow Green Library – latest news

Can you help this community project?

Harrow Green Library - now axedLocal campaigners fought hard to save Harrow Green Library as it is, with paid staff and current opening hours. Regrettably the council refused to change their plans.

The residents therefore intend to run it themselves. A lot of volunteers will be needed.

Would you like to help? Even a couple of hours a week would be invaluable. You don’t need experience. Training will be arranged.

If you would like to volunteer, please write to: 15 Matcham Road, E11 3LE. You can also contact the group at helpharrowgreen@hotmail.co.uk or telephone 07930 634210. Please give the following details:

  • Your name

  • Postal address, including postcode

  • Email (if any)

  • Land-line phone (if any)

  • Mobile phone (if any)

Local Police Stations not open 24 hours

The only Police station open 24 hours in Waltham Forest is Chingford. The others are closed most of the early hours.

The following are the opening times of Waltham Forest Police stations Monday to Sunday:

Chingford – 24 hours
Leyton – 0700 – 0300
Walthamstow – 0700 – 0300
Town Centre office – Tuesday – Saturday 1000-1800
Waltham House (Leytonstone) – 0700 – 1900

Remember – In an emergency you need to phone 999

Cann Hall Safer Neighbourhood Police Team

Avoid Being A Victim of Crime

Cann Hall’s Safer Neighbourhood Police Team is putting leaflets on cars in areas in our ward that have been targeted by criminals stealing from motor vehicles.

They are reminding residents to ensure that NO VALUABLES are left on display in your vehicles and it is not prudent to put them in the glove box.

Police priorities for the next 3 months

Focus Team member Councillor Liz Phillips attended the Cann Hall Police Forum meeting where residents receive local crime figures for the last 3 months. At the end of the meeting residents vote on the new priorities that they want the local police team to work on for the next 3 months.

They are:

1) Anti-Social Behaviour.

2) Motor Vehicle Crime

3) Burglary.