“At the Council’s Budget Meeting on the 21st February, Swindon’s Labour Councillors will be moving a sensible amendment to the Conservative administration’s proposed budget, to protect frontline services like road surfacing and protecting services like Dial a Ride and bus services. We will do this by cutting senior management costs, consultants’ costs and the cost of Councillors.
We don’t believe that it is right that the Council’s consultants budget increases while frontline services like social care, child protection, pothole filling and street cleaning are being cut back so dramatically.
“At the Council’s Budget Meeting on the 21st February, Swindon’s Labour Councillors will be moving a sensible amendment to the Conservative administration’s proposed budget, to protect frontline services like road surfacing and protecting services like Dial a Ride and bus services. We will do this by cutting senior management costs, consultants’ costs and the cost of Councillors.
We don’t believe that it is right that the Council’s consultants budget increases while frontline services like social care, child protection, pothole filling and street cleaning are being cut back so dramatically.
This budget amendment won’t be able to save every frontline service proposed to be cut next year and some might be disappointed that we have chosen to save another service rather than theirs. But we have prioritised those services that serve the town’s most vulnerable people and value for money services, like road resurfacing.
This Council faces some grave and serious challenges over the coming years. Our funding is being cut back more and more by the Coalition Government, which in turn is leading to greater financial pressures on the Council such as through greater long-term unemployment. There is also a social care crisis, with an ageing population and more people with complex disabilities and needs. And the current Conservative administration has racked up an external debt of £90m, which means the Council has to spend millions and millions of pounds each year on debt charges.
I won’t pretend that if Labour is in charge of the Council we could solve these great challenges with a stroke of a pen. But we would make a start. Firstly, we would ensure the Council becomes the local Swindon voice to the Coalition Government about the effects their cuts are having on our residents. We would seek to alleviate spiralling social and residential care bills by building supported living housing for our elderly and disabled, which will enable them to remain as independent as they can but will also ensure they are not left completely isolated and vulnerable. And we would establish a cross-party working group to focus on how the Council can reduce its debts and take the politics out of the difficult decisions that will have to be made.
These challenging times require a Labour Group of Councillors prepared to stand up for the vulnerable people in this town, while also ensuring that hard-working council-taxpayers feel that their council is working for them. I believe the Labour budget amendment achieves that goal. “
Cllr Jim Grant
Swindon Labour Group Leader