Anyone who has looked at the budget proposals by the current “caring” council can’t fail to notice that it hits the education, and I would suggest the welfare, of the most vulnerable children in Swindon.
Eight out of the twenty proposals listed on the budget proposal web page of Swindon Borough Council are educationally based and are targeted at those with either emotional or educational difficulties.
For example a review of supported living for those with learning disabilities and a review of Learning Disability care packages. These two reviews could potentially save £563,000 according to the figure it is either going to set out.
Even with the best case scenario coming from the review this is going to do one of two things.
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Remove completely the service from any number of current clients .
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Set the service on a course that will inevitably lead to the closure.
I say this because it doesn’t take a genius to see that taking this much funding out of any facility can do nothing but damage the infrastructure.
I can hear response from my living room: So Where Would You Make the Cuts?
This may not be the most popular solution but i suggest that this Council look at themselves to find the answers. For the past 10 years they have blamed the pervious labour Council for the cuts, failing services etc. At no time have they taken any responsibility for problems of their own making.
Four of the senior members of council cabinet are accountants, yet none of them saw the problems of giving a £400,000 wi-fi project to a company with no experience in the field. On top of that they failed to notice that despite the fact that the company had received over half of the total funding there was no progress at all.
Finally, whilst the company was in the throws of bankruptcy they rubber stamped a further £200,000 payment.
These is just one case where there appears to be a problem that is nothing to do with the previous labour administration. I am not privy to all of the transactions made by this administration over the past ten years but I would ask how many more of these amazing failures might one find if we looked a little closer?
