At last, after five barren years, the local Liberals have entered the debate about the Council budget with some serious proposals. So next week we will have two amendments to the Tory proposals where there have always been one, from me.
And there is some good stuff in their budget. Some overlaps with ours (eg. reductions in media and communications, reduction in carbon emissions by 10%), some of it is plain daft (eg. returning the senior management structure to what it was in 2005 within just one year), and some of it entirely fails to hit the spot.
Missing the spot are the absence of any support for Westminster House; the failure to loosen the straightjacket that will be put on the vulnerable people who don't use Supporting People services, but need other social services; the failure to retain music lesson subsidies for children of the less well-off; and the failure to recognise that the care 'personalisation' agenda is really going to hit some care providers in the next year.
Nonetheless, I will be inclined to vote for their amendment once ours has fallen. However, I bet they won't do the same to ours.
What would be good would be if we could find common ground and have an amendment on the night that all opposition members (15) can get behind. And maybe then, just maybe, 5 Tories might remember that supporting the Council Leader isn't as important as supporting vulnerable people.........
2 comments:
Perhaps it's now more likely that 5more tories will vote against - I know with certainty that his recent behaviour has caused some of them to do some serious soul searching. Unrelated to the budget maybe, but whatever makes them see sense is welcome eh
You did well yesterday Geoff, uniting the opposition. All it needs if for a complaint against Pugh to succeed and the Tories will have an excuse to backpedal on these cruel cuts. Question is, why has no-one done it?
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