Mr Mayor, I rise tonight to move the amendments to the Budget proposed by the Main Opposition Liberal Democrat Group.
In so doing it is interesting to comment that both the Conservative and UKIP as the Minor Opposition Groups have NOT bothered to table any amendments or offer any alternative to Labour’s proposals.
The Administration is proposing to increase Council Tax by two percent to create a ring-fenced budget of extra monies for adult social care, and a further one point seven percent increase to generally increase revenue.
As Liberal Democrats and a responsible opposition we support both moves but we have some clear differences from the Labour Administration as to where we should spend the general increase in revenue on and where additional savings could be made.
At this point, it would be remiss of me not to place on record my thanks to the all council officers and staff in making sure a balanced budget is presented. Not an easy task this year to say the least.
The Lib Dem proposals are listed under Item 3e, Part 2, starting on Page 493 of tonight’s Council papers; it might be possible for all those who are not confirmed insomniacs to miss them.
Link to the Lib Dems Alternative Budget Proposals starting on page 493: http://committees.oldham.gov.uk/documents/g5890/Public%20reports%20pack%2024th-Feb-2016%2018.00%20Council.pdf?T=10
I would like therefore to highlight in summary, Mr Mayor, what the Lib Dems are proposing and why.
We would invest an extra five million pounds over the coming year in improving our Borough’s roads;
We would grant local councillors and the districts they represent a budget of £50,000 to spend in each of their wards to meet local priorities.
We would reverse an £80,000 cut proposed by Labour to retain three enforcement officers in post to combat dog-fouling, fly-tipping and litter in our communities.
We would invest £130,000 in establishing two new and additional gully cleaning teams.
We would invest more than £200,000 to restore the free Bulky Bob waste collection service for Oldham’s residents.
These investments reflect what our citizens say they want. A Council that gets the basics right. A Council that does its very best to help keep our Borough clean so we can all have pride in where we live. And a Council that invests in our crumbling highways.
The other key question is how are we going to pay for this?
These basics will be funded by investing £1.2 million of the increase in extra revenue, but also by slashing more than £400,000 in unnecessary spending elsewhere at the Council. This will enable us to invest £5 million to improve our highways. To tackling the blight of fly-tipping, dirty streets, dog-fouling, blocked gullies and flooding.
Even in these harsh times we would increase Ward Budgets so that local Ward Councillors and local residents can work together with more cash – a million pounds across the Borough – to meet their local needs.
Mr Mayor, these investments will have a real positive impact on the lives of our residents in the communities in which they live, because we will be spending more on services ‘on the ground’ that they can see and value.
Our savings will hit bureaucracy and waste – with less spent on councillors, less on staff sickness, less on consultants, less on council publications and less on external conferences. All things in these harsh times we need to and must cut back on.
So more spent on REAL services for REAL people; less spent on unseen, unloved and unvalued so called ‘back office’ functions in the Civic Centre.
Our proposals reflect our party’s differences in philosophy and priorities over those of this Administration. REAL devolved power and to have REAL POWER you need the CASH!
Liberal Democrats have always believed that decisions should be made bottom up and not top down because it is our view that local leaders (councillors) and local people know best.
After all we seek more devolved decision making for Greater Manchester and our Borough from the Government and its institutions. And rightly so: so using the same logic, our local districts should have more devolved decision making, more power and more cash. After all what is good for the goose is good for the gander!
We have a common sense approach to spending, making investments to save money in the long-term and I should like to say more about this point here, Mr Mayor.
Given the limited amount of time available to me in this speech, I would like to focus on just one investment that we propose in our amendment and explain why this represents an invest to save measure.
I want to focus on gully cleaning and I make no apology for this. In 2007, the Liberal Democrat Administration invested money in gully cleaning teams to prevent a recurrence of flooding problems inherited as a result of Labour neglect.
This flooding also impacted on the quality of highways and footways with water and frost damage causing surfaces to break up and massively shortening road surfaces useful life and leading to an outbreak of pot holes and other road surface defects.
So this is something we did before and it is a proposal that we will continue to raise as an Opposition group. This is about getting the basics right, it is about common sense.
Blocked drains generate surface water which damages road surfaces, creates potholes, and represents a road hazard, particularly when frozen.
Surface water can also seep into adjacent homes and, with our recent incessant rain and the experience of some of our residents we should all be mindful of this, it causes flooding.
It is also a laborious and expensive process to clear blocked drains as they must be dug out by hand. And how expensive I hear you ask – well let me tell you it is more than five times, yes FIVE TIMES more expensive than what it would have cost to jet clean them in the first place.
A failure to invest in adequate gully cleaning is such a false economy.
As I have previously said this is about getting the basics right – spending a little more now routinely jetting gullies before they get blocked to make a colossal saving when they do later.
And this is just the financial saving – the personal saving to residents not having to risk life and limb navigating icy and water-logged roads, or having to salvage their water-damaged possessions from flooded homes, is incalculable.
The Administration will tonight talk a lot about the capital investment being made on regeneration projects in our town centre, and this is all well and good, but our proposals are about getting the basics right.
We can have as many prestigious retail and leisure developments as you like in our town centre.
But if we have crumbling highways and flooding, litter and dog-fouling on our streets, the quality of life and value of self-worth of our residents will not be what it should and can be. Getting these basics right will also help attract those inward investors that we all seek.
Mr Mayor, I have talked so far about the differences of philosophy and priorities that exist between this Administration and ourselves, however it would be remiss of me not to also talk of our common ground.
It is our job as an Opposition, a responsible Opposition, to seek to challenge the Administration over finance and to offer constructive suggestions and options to make further savings without damaging services and to invest to improve those services for the citizens we all serve.
However it is also our responsibility as an Opposition to continue to stand four-square alongside the Administration in continuing to resist local government cuts and to fight for a fair deal for our Borough.
As I have stated in this Chamber before, I will do all that I can to work with the Council Leader to ensure that Oldham’s case is heard in the distant corridors of Whitehall and London.
It continues to be a very difficult time for elected Members – of whatever party – and their Officers to have to balance a Council budget, so I pay tribute to all – councillors and officers – who this year have shouldered their responsibilities in bringing to us a balanced budget tonight.
In the majority of instances, Mr Mayor, the Liberal Democrats have supported the Administration. In this Chamber, we have backed the savings proposed in Tranche One, in Tranche Two and in the main, in Tranche Three, with the notable exception of proposing to reverse the most unfortunate cut in the numbers of enforcement officers.
Where we can we will continue to support this Administration – this is not about Opposition for Opposition’s sake – and tonight again we will support most of the Administration’s proposals in this Pale Green Book.
But let us not be in any doubt that times are going to get tougher yet! Last year I predicted – and I quote – “whoever forms the next Government; things will not change much and in a couple of scenarios could get a lot worse!”
Well, Mr Mayor, I regret to say that with the outright election of a hard-line Conservative Government, dedicated to so called continued austerity and the desire of a now-unfettered Conservative Chancellor to ‘cut, cut and cut again’, my worst fears have been realised.
So we must continue the fight with central Government for fair finance and for fighting our corner as Oldham within a devolved Greater Manchester but we must also be mindful of the reality that cuts will continue during the lifetime of this Parliament.
That is why we, as Liberal Democrats, recognise that, with a shrinking budget and less money to play with, we should focus what little money we have on where it will make the greatest positive impact.
That is why I believe that we need to work together to look to make budget reductions in ways that retain those services that are core to our business and are valued most highly by our residents; to continue to invest money where this will enable us to work smarter and to reduce bureaucracy, duplication of effort, and waste.
We must always – ALWAYS – try to protect the services needed by the most vulnerable residents of our Borough. These are the priorities that drive the Liberal Democrats and these priorities underpin the proposals we have brought to this Chamber tonight.
Mr Mayor, I do hope that members from other parties in this Chamber will share these priorities – and that they will want to support our proposals. With this in mind, I therefore commend our proposals to this Chamber.
POSTSCRIPT: Only the 10 Lib Dems and one Independent Councillor voted for the above proposals. The two Conservative and two UkiP Councillors where happy to support the 45 Labour Councillors and Labour’s budget – as usual.