Details: Liberal Democrat Opposition Budget Proposals 1 March 2017

Mr Mayor, I rise tonight to move the amendments to the Administration’s Budget proposed by the Opposition Liberal Democrat Group.

With the support of diligent officers, the Liberal Democrat finance team of Councillors John McCann and Diane Williamson have come up with some innovative and fully-costed proposals to meet the public’s key demands for better roads, cleaner streets and to tackle the rising problem of anti-social behaviour.

It is interesting to note that once more the Conservative Group has not submitted any amendment.

This year the Administration is proposing a general increase in Council Tax of 1.99 percent and an additional two percent increase ring-fenced to spend on social care.

The Liberal Democrats fully support these proposals.  The reality is that we must do this.  Our essential services are being starved of cash by this Conservative Government and our social care system is in crisis.

And let’s be clear that 2% increase in Council Tax will nowhere near be enough to close the ever increasing gap there is in funding adult care.

Let us take a moment to look at our financial situation – and it is a sad and increasing desperate one.

Unlike Conservative controlled Surrey County Council, which appears to have secured more money from Government in a sweetheart deal, Oldham cannot anticipate a similar windfall.

Rather, we, like many similar local authorities, have now largely dispensed with the flesh and are starting to cut into the bone or dare I say, we are sawing off the limbs.

We may soon face a real danger that our funds will be so low that even those services that we are by law obliged to provide will be under grave threat.

This year the Administration has had to cut £15 million from our 2017-2018 budget.

Conservative Government strategy – though malice is rather a better description – is to cut the Revenue Support Grant, the money that we receive from central Government to support our local services, in stages from £30 million now to nil by the end of the 2020 – 2021 financial year.

That’s a £30 million shortfall that we are expected to meet.

That’s a big shortfall to make up with no certainty that we can do so.

This Government wants local authorities to self-finance our services, but this is a lot harder in a low wage, high demand Borough like Oldham than it is in affluent Surrey.

This Government’s approach of taking away with the one hand and then appearing to give with the other.

Take the Better Care Fund.  Cash is going up – good news, or so you might think, but other health-related revenue streams are being slashed, wiping out any increase and is in fact a cut!

And this at a time that £3 million of additional pressures are being built into our budget to meet the rising cost of social care – that’s £3 million additional in each and every year.

This year £5.5 million of our reserves are being deployed to meet the 2017 – 2018 budget gap.

This may be a temporary but necessary expedient, but it is like handing a drowning person an inflatable lift raft with a hole in it.

They frantically blow into the raft for as long as they are able but that cannot be forever.

Finally they expire and the waters close over them.  How long will it be before our reserves expire and the waters of austerity close over us?

So I do not envy Councillor Jabbar and his finance team.

Indeed I have to pay tribute to him and all the Council’s Officers for putting together a budget in the most trying of circumstances.

I would like to reiterate the point that I made last year that the Oldham Liberal Democrat Group is at one with the Labour Administration in resisting further central Government cuts.

And can I also say in fighting our corner to get Oldham’s fair share of a devolved budget for Greater Manchester, something I am far from convinced is happening!

It would be remiss of me not to mention how glad I am to see that the Link Centre has been given a stay of execution, and hopefully a bright and long future.

In September of last year I wrote to Councillor Harrison to suggest that we look to establish an independent trust to run the centre and I was pleased to see that this is a suggestion that this Administration has decided to adopt.

We must now hope that a new trust can attract sufficient external funding and the backing of the right parties to make the centre a future success.  Its’ services will be increasingly needed in times to come.

I turn now to our proposed amendment.

Mr Mayor, our amendment is of two parts – we have identified additional savings or more honestly, cuts that we are convinced can be made without impacting on essential services and we have identified investments in core services that are most valued by our ratepayers.

What matters to most people in this Borough are the issues they face every day in their communities – crumbling highways, dumped sofa beds, blocked gullies and feral youth engaged in all kinds of intimidating, anti-social and downright criminal behaviour!

These are the issues we seek to address tonight.  Are our proposals to tackle them new?  No they are not.  And I make no apologies for that!  We are consistent year on year in what we would do differently.

We have been making these same proposals, or ones very similar, at each of the last five Budget Councils and we will continue to ask for them because they represent common sense and they are what the public wants.

We would invest £472,000 to make our highways better and our streets cleaner and safer.  This may not sound much, but let me tell you what we as Liberal Democrats would do with this money.

We would use some of this money to enable us to borrow an extra £5 million over the coming year to invest in improving our Borough’s roads to make driving safer and more pleasant for road users.

We would use £170,000 of this money to employ an extra gully cleaning team and an extra vehicle to tackle more of the gullies in our Borough that are clogged with soil creating water on our highways that make driving dangerous and increase the possibility of flooding.

We would invest an extra £79,000 to restore a free Bulky Bobs waste collection service so that no-one will be unable to access a free-at-the-point-of-need service and helping to reduce the many instances of fly-tipping of bulky households that continue to blight our Borough.

And last but not least we would invest a further £60,000 in youth outreach workers.  All councillors of all parties of all areas will tell you of the problems of anti-social behaviour caused by the small minority.

This investment will provide more workers on our streets to engage youth in positive activity.

So,

• Better roads
• Clearer gullies
• Cleaner streets and
• Less anti-social behaviour

All priorities for the residents of Oldham and all this for less than half a million pounds.

As the saying goes ‘it’s a no brainer really isn’t it’?

And how are we going to pay for this?

By reducing spending on publications, printing and advertising; tackling sickness; employing less agency staff and reducing the size of our marketing, communications and policy team.

And once more proposing to reduce spending on street lighting in the wee small hours and in rural areas where it is not needed – for as my colleague John McCann famously said last year ‘sheep cannot read’.  And I would add if they can they can, they can do it in the dark!

Mr Mayor, these are all common-sense savings targeted at bureaucracy and waste – bug-bears to our long-suffering rate payers – and they amount to almost £734,000 a year.

So not only would we be able to afford our investments to improve highways and tackle the blight of fly-tipping, dirty streets, blocked gullies, flooding and anti-social behaviour, but we can put over £260,000 back into the pot; year after year.

Mr Mayor, these investments will have a real positive impact on the quality of life of our residents.  This is about getting the basics right and spending less on back-office bureaucracy in the Civic Centre!

I also feel that now is the time that we take a long hard look at our future financial position.  With the reduction in Revenue Support Grant of £30 million the reality is that our spending will be pared to the bone.

So we need a clear view of the services we are obliged by law as a local authority we are obliged to deliver in law and their delivering these services costs.  Surely then all that remains must be subject to further scrutiny and may be cut.

I hope that this review can be carried out on a cross-party basis and built on consensus.

One area where we as Liberal Democrats are clear a cut should be made is in the number of Councillors.

This is a sensible suggestion that we have made before and we will make again.

We are proposing a reduction by one-third in the number of our Councillors.  We feel that with a Cabinet system we could function with forty rather than sixty Councillors.

This has been an approach adopted by Labour-controlled Knowsley Council and it is one we also want to see here.

We estimate that this would save this authority at least £185,000 every year.

But the time to act is now as such a proposal needs the approval of the Boundary Commission.

We are also proposing an investment in LED lighting in our street lamps.  Not only will such a plan save us money in the long-term, but it will also reduce our carbon emissions and be good for our environment.

Mr Mayor, I should like to talk more but now my time is up so let me summarise – the Liberal Democrats proposal is for:

• More savings on waste and bureaucracy;
• Immediate investments to make our highways and streets safer;
• Greener and cleaner Borough;
• A long-term plan to ensure we meet our legal obligations to provide statutory services.

I therefore commend this amendment to this Chamber.

Councillor Howard Sykes MBE, Leader of the Opposition, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group Oldham Council – 1 March 2017.