Council Tax – Alternative Budget Council Speech

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.

Liberal Democrats Call for Ofsted Inspection into ‘Trojan Horse’ allegations in Oldham school

Following media allegations of a so called ‘Trojan Horse’ style attempt to promote ‘Conservative Islamic Values’ within Clarksfield Primary School in Oldham, the Liberal Democrat Group on the Council is calling upon Council Leaders to formally request Ofsted conduct a fully independent investigation of the school to alleviate growing concerns amongst teachers, staff, parents, pupils and the wider community.

Serious allegations have been made that teaching, leadership and management at the school has been interfered with in order to promote ‘Conservative Islamic Values’ within this mainstream primary school in Oldham.  These have been compounded by additional allegations of threats to the Headteacher and members of staff

Commenting as Chairperson of the Group, Councillor Chris Gloster, himself a governor of two Oldham schools, said: “allegations of this type are damaging to everyone, most of all to the pupils of the school who should be free to learn and develop in a safe and caring environment.”

“We all have a duty to actively promote fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.  British Values have been actively taught in schools since at least 2014. Any external interference of this important area of the school curriculum is unacceptable and must and will not be tolerated.”

‘We also have a duty to protect staff and pupils and if these allegations have any truth behind them, they are abhorrent and there is no place for them in an inclusive society, which Oldham strives to be’.

‘I have today written to the Leader of Oldham Council, Councillor Jean Stretton, and the Chief Executive of Oldham Council, Dr Carolyn Wilkins OBE, asking that the school and Council formally request Ofsted carry out a full and independent inspection of the school at the earliest opportunity.  This way we can be satisfied as to how the school is being run and provide additional support if necessary to the school and its leaders’.

The email sent to Cllr Stretton and Dr Wilkins is shown below.

From: Cllr C Gloster
Sent: 27 February 2017 19:54
To: Carolyn Wilkins; Cllr J Stretton
Cc: Howard Sykes
Subject: Request for OFSTED Inspection re Clarksfield Primary School
Importance: High

Dear Cllr Stretton and Dr Wilkins,

I am writing to you as Chairman, on behalf of the Oldham Council Liberal Democrat Group, with regards to the current situation at Clarksfield Primary School.

As you are no doubt aware, there has been national media coverage about the school and an alleged ‘Trojan Horse’ plot to infiltrate the school in order to promote Conservative Islamic Values upon it, an idea which is totally unacceptable.

Additional allegations have been made concerning threats to the Headteacher and other staff who have fears for their safety. This again is totally unacceptable.

I must record my disappointment at this stage that the Leader of the Opposition, Councillor Howard Sykes only learned of this matter in a telephone call on the Friday (17/02/17) evening (at 7.45pm) prior to the national press coverage that weekend.  I suspect we would still know nothing about this very important matter if there had been no press report!

I also understand that a ‘secret’ report was prepared in December and forwarded to the National Counter Terrorist Unit. If this is true, the Council have therefore had since December 2016 to, at a minimum, brief the Leader of the Opposition about this matter, which came as a total surprise to opposition party councillors, including the leader, who were unable to comment when questioned about the alleged incident, having had no input of any sort in relation to it.

I all too well understand the need for secrecy at times, however as we are all on the same team which is Oldham Council, I do not believe that merely a party-political divide is sufficient for issues of such seriousness not to be disclosed, even in redacted form if necessary, to appropriate senior elected members of the council.

It is clear that the allegations made in the press will do nothing but damage our efforts towards community cohesion. It is also clear that a stain has been left upon Clarksfield Primary School that will be hard to remove unless some form of independent and transparent investigation is carried out.

To this end, as Chairman of the Opposition Group, I am writing to ask that Oldham Council formally request the Department for Education to instigate a full Ofsted Inspection of the school at the earliest opportunity in order to alleviate the concerns of staff pupils and parents, as well as the wider community, and if necessary, identify areas that we as a Council will be able to assist the school with in maintaining its ‘good’ rating.

Yours sincerely

Chris Gloster, Councillor for Shaw Ward, Chairman Oldham Council Liberal Democrat Group

Crompton Moor Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO)

A formal OMBC consultation on a proposed Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) for Crompton Moor is to start today the 27th February 2017 and will run for 7 days.

The PSPO would help the police and council officers to address certain anti-social behaviour, and has been developed in response to concerns expressed by the public.

The consultation document and boundary map is available at Crompton Library, Farrow Street, Shaw, and is open to anyone who uses Crompton Moor or has an interest in it. A feedback form will be available for anyone to complete and will be available for the next 7 days.

PSPOs are intended to deal with nuisance or problems that are detrimental to the local community’s quality of life, by imposing conditions on the use of that area.

Myself and others have been trying to progress this for some time as with a PSPO some of the anti social activities that happen on the Moor from time to time will be able to be dealt with more effectively.

If you use/value the Moor, Brushes Clough and surrounding area please have your say.

Liberal Democrats call for Oldham Council to fix the roads, spend more on reducing flooding and keep the streets cleaner

Copy of the budget amendment: Liberal Democrat Opposition Budget Proposals 1 March 2017

The Liberal Democrat Group on Oldham Council will propose that in this year’s budget more money is invested on highway and environmental improvements to make the Borough’s streets safer and cleaner.

The Leader of the Opposition and of the Liberal Democrat Group, Cllr Howard Sykes MBE, said: “I would like to thank Council officers and my colleagues Councillors John McCann and Diane Williamson for their invaluable support in putting together these proposals.”

“The Liberal Democrat Group recognises that once again this year the Labour Administration has been forced to cut spending and services as the grant from central government has once more been squeezed; and the situation will not improve whilst the Conservatives remain in office.”

“Local government continues to be one of the biggest victims of this Government’s austerity strategy and things will only get worse; by 2021 Oldham will lose its entire central Government grant.”

Labour has again proposed that Council Tax bills rise by 2% to pay for improvements to adult social care and a further 1.99% for other services.

Cllr Sykes commented: “The Liberal Democrats will once again support this rise as it will at least raise some more money for services; but we also think it is important to focus every penny that we have on core services.  As well as revenue-raising, our strategy is to continue to identify savings in back-office bureaucracy and waste to free up money to support the services that are most valued by our ratepayers.”

This year, once more the Liberal Democrats are proposing measures that will generate more than £730,000 in savings each year – from reducing publications, printing and advertising, to tackling absenteeism; and reducing expenditure on employing agency staff and reducing the size of the communications/policy team.  The cash saved will be spent on better roads, cleaner streets and more youth outreach provision.

Cllr Sykes said: “We recognise that this is only a relatively small amount compared to the many millions that this Council has been forced to save, but this modest amount could nonetheless be a game-changer – it would provide us with the revenue we need to borrow more than £5 million to invest in our key highways, with enough left over to radically improve our gully-cleaning service, restore a free Bulky Bobs waste collection service and pay for more youth outreach provision to engage with young people in our communities.”

The Liberal Democrats are calling for over £470,000 from the additional savings that they have identified to go to:

  • Fund a £5 million investment programme to tackle the repairs backlog on the borough’s main and secondary highways
  • Employ four more staff and an extra vehicle on gully-cleaning across the borough
  • Restore the free Bulky Bobs bulk waste collection service to the public
  • Increasing the provision for youth outreach workers

Cllr Sykes explained why the Liberal Democrat Group wanted once again, to focus on investing in highway improvements and tackling blocked gullies and fly-tipping across the Borough:

“There is a backlog amounting to over £5 million in road repairs to our Borough’s main and secondary highways.  Our highways improvement programme will make our key roads safer and smoother for drivers and their passengers and our Borough a more attractive one to travel in.”

“An extra gully cleaning team and vehicle will mean we can free up more of the many gullies that are currently clogged with soil.  When a gully is blocked water does not run away and the road can become slippery for drivers, especially when the water turns to ice.  Local properties can also be flooded.  Blocked gullies have to be dug out by hand, which is a slow and labour-intensive process that is costly.  This timely investment on gully-cleaning represents good sense”.

“We also full support returning Bulky Bobs to a free service.  Time and again we read reports in the local press or hear from our constituents about furniture and other bulky household detritus being dumped in our streets.  This is also a complaint made by several Labour Councillors in full Council over the past twelve months.”

“Poorer people are unable to afford to pay for a collection service and irresponsible people do not want to.  Making Bulky Bobs free again would mean that no one has any excuse for dumping these unwanted goods.”

Rochdale Road, Chamber Road, Fraser Street temporary traffic lights with four way working Monday 6 March

Details: Rochdale Road Fraser Street Chamber Road General Arrangement

Safety improvement works will be taking place on Rochdale Road / Fraser Street/ Chamber Road, as shown on the attached plan.

The works will be starting on Monday 6th March for a period of 2 weeks, ending on Friday 17th March 2017.

To safely carry out the resurfacing works both 4-way Temporary Traffic Lights & a Road Closure are needed.

The junction of Rochdale Road / Fraser Street will be under 4-way lights between the hours of 09:30-15:30 (Mon-Fri).

The Road Closure will be in place only for the surfacing element of the works, which is estimated to start Monday 13th February 2017, and the closure will only be in place between the hours of 18:00-23:00, during which a full signed diversion will be in place.

If you require any further information contact:

Matt McGreal, Engineer, Highways & Engineering.

T: 0161 770 1955

E: Matthew.McGreal@unitypartnership.com