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Council leader under fire from Tories calls for 'debate' on budget cuts

THURROCK Council Leader, Cllr John Kent, says he wants “a full, no-holds barred debate” about proposals to save around £15 million in the council’s 2011/12 spending.

His comments, at Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting, came hours after the ruling Labour group had been blasted by Conservatives on the Council for not involving them in the budget process.

Earlier in the day Conservative Leader Garry Hague had slammed Labour on their approach to implementing £4m of cuts to the Council's budget. 

Cllr Hague said: "The previous Conservative Council set a balanced budget in February of this year and this was preceded by a thorough cross party scrutiny process by elected members which finally identified around £9 million in savings and the continuation of a low level of council tax.

"The process which the Labour Council is now undertaking to find an additional £4 million of savings is turning into a fiasco with no proper mechanism being put in place to allow members of all parties to scrutinise the savings proposals - many of which will have deep impacts on our residents and communities.

"While we recognise the pace required to ensure that early action is taken to identify additional savings to the budget this year, there appears to be no proper and sound provision to allow the democratic scrutiny process to take place.  At the scrutiny chairs meeting last Tuesday scrutiny representatives were led to believe that scrutiny arrangements would be put in place for this week ahead of Cabinet and Council.  No such provision has been arranged which means that significant budget cuts that will impact on our residents are not getting the proper scrutiny by democratically elected council members.

"Setting this budget is Labour's biggest challenge so far, and so far their performance is worrying, to say the least.   They know the potential significant impacts of these proposals on our communities and yet they appear to want to ride roughshod over the residents of Thurrock and the Council's Constitution.  I have written to the Leader of the Labour Council advising him that elected members must be given the opportunity to properly scrutinise these budget proposals on behalf of our residents."

Cllr Kent had claimed Conservatives were invited to be involved in the budget process but Cllr Hague had not responded at all, while his deputy, Cllr Amanda Arnold, had apologised but said she couldn’t attend a meeting.

Speaking at cabinet, Cllr Kent said: “We’ve already identified savings we have to make this year, but we’re looking at even bigger cuts next year … and for two years after that too.

“In order for the council to target the resources it has effectively, we need to know what the people of Thurrock believe should be our priorities and, conversely, which areas are not a priority for them.

“There are many services we provide which we have to do, by law, but there are others which are optional and obviously it’s the optional areas we will be looking at most closely.

“But we also have to examine, in minute detail, every service we do provide; we have to find new ways of providing services, ways which will be more efficient and more value for the tax-payer’s pound.

“To do this we need as many people as possible to take part in the discussion. There will be opportunities to do so by email, via the council’s website, newspaper advertisements and the cabinet will be getting out into the community to discuss these proposals — a full, no-holds barred debate.”

The consultation will be launched after proposals agreed at cabinet are discussed and agreed by the full council next week. It is expected that another council meeting — in October — will discuss the plans for 2011/12 in more detail.

Cllr Kent said: “We won’t know specific details of where the cuts in our Government grants will be, but we can make educated guesses. The Government will announce general spending plans in October and Thurrock will find out its specific grants in December.

“But we can’t afford to wait until then. We need to have identified our priorities and to have worked out some major savings proposals so we can discuss specifics with local people later in the financial year.

“We receive approximately 60 per cent of our money in Government grants — around £70 million at the moment — and we’re expecting that to be cut by at least a quarter, that’s the measure of what we are looking at.

“We’re also going to have to look further ahead too. There will be cuts this year, next year and at least for the two years after that. The council’s going to have to change and we need people’s help to make those changes.”

Date published: 21/07/2010 21:30:00

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