BUDGET SPEECH 2011

Madame Mayor

Everyone here understands the sad state our national economy left by the last Labour Government and the need for us to show prudence, community leadership and initiative.

We know and understand that our settlement from Government this year was poor and that historically we have not had appropriate settlements – although we live in hope on that scope.

A Lib Dem supporter, a disabled person, said to me the other day, however much to spend we will be judged on what we do spend our money on. Like all governments and local authorities we have choices.

I am disappointed with the messages that this budgets sends out to the wider world about Kingston.

I am unable to support this Budget and in the short time allocated I will try and outline some of the reasons why.

We are rightly proud of the way we have always looked after the most vulnerable people in Kingston but it now seems that they will have to take a disproportionate heavy slice of the cuts that we are faced with.

Those disabled and vulnerable people with high value care packages will be hit very hard some will say the hardest.

The future of our care in the community for the elderly is once again going to take a bashing and it looks as though day centres and caring for the marginalized, socially deprived mostly elderly and lonely people will take a hit by losing much of its funding whilst transferring much of the responsibility to the private sector without the necessary money to make it happen.

Commissioning without compassion is not the way we want to see our council operate. We want more transparency and openness.

I leave you with this thought – the new Liberal Democrat Councillors in particular.

Would you have thought before becoming a councillor that you would spend £2.5 million over five years on a theatre rather than support the disabled, the vulnerable and elderly? Especially when you consider that the start of the theatre project the Lid Dems went to the polls saying that they would not spend any public money on the theatre and it seems a few years later we are in position where they will have spent over £15 million.

We on our side have campaigned for a more slender and less top heavy management within the Council. We believe that this Council pays too much for its senior staff.

Along with many local authorities we have fallen into the trap of accepting recommendations regarding senior staff pay from organizations with a vested interest in maintaining high levels of pay - we have too many senior staff earning over £100,000 a year and this Council should be looking not only to reorganize the senior management team but at the same time re-negotiate the levels of salaries.

It looks as if the job losses in community care services will be at the point of delivery and we lose social worked instead of senior managers – some of them are going to get substantial pay rises approaching that £100,000 bracket with some of the changes which will be published soon.

We think that the way in which One Council has been undertaken and the way in which you as an Administration have taken nearly a year after the election to start negotiations with other Boroughs and we hope with other partners to provide services is woefully slow – we have missed an opportunity – we applaud the work you have done in this respect but criticise the slowness of action – we should have been able to see the savings from this activity far sooner than we will – certainly an opportunity lost.

Madame Mayor I cannot support this Budget Proposal.

Conservative Group Leader Councillor Howard Jones.

Madame Mayor

These are difficult times for people – those who are working, those not in work and for public institutions.

We are seeing the much-needed realignment of public spending with public revenues. This Council will need to reduce its spending capability by nearly 30% over a 4 year period – 24% of that in the first 2 years.

Nevertheless, it is illogical and in the fullness of time, unfair, to separate revenues and spending. This – the new reality – is occurring throughout the public sector.

As one in every four pounds spent by the nation is through local government, it was obvious that councils were going to be hit. In addition, this council has been told by the Coalition Government that it needs to reduce spending by £13 million over the next year.

We understand that priorities in spending during tough times can be difficult. My priorities as a councillor, as will hopefully be shared by many others, is to protect people who need help – children and adults, helping people lead normal lives and keep the burden of tax low.

This Budget does not show what the priorities of the administration are.

  • Adult care charges: a £700,000 increase in prices is a poor judgement from the Administration. I believe that all efforts should be made to protect these people and urge even at this stage for the Executive Members to look again. After all, who are we if we do not look after people that need our help and protection?
  • Rose Theatre:where do we start with the theatre? Is it the broken promise that no Council finance would be spent in this endeavour? Is it that the theatre would be making money and would need no finance from the residents? Or is that a three year deal worth £1.8 million is being replaced with a five year deal worth £2.5 million – and this is deemed as a £100,000 saving. One of the arguments for this massive injection of public finance is that it gives the theatre stability in the long-term. What about the stability of residents and those who the administration is targeting?
  • I believe that the council should work on an exit strategy to remove the burden of the theatre and its constant arrival with cap-in-hand away from residents. If the Council does not think it will ever make enough to run itself, we need to have a discussion between all councillors on the next steps.
  • Parking charges:the leader said in the Executive when the Budget was discussed that it is the action of the Council that makes Kingston economically vibrant and business friendly. How can this be true when business parking charges are being increased by 200%? Would it not have been wise and prudent for prices to have gradually risen over a longer period of time? This will not be liked by struggling small businesses.
  • Staffing:the main area of spending for any Council or large institution is the cost of staff. Can I start by saying that since I have become a councillor, and when I was working downstairs, the staffs here are professional and extremely knowledgeable about the issues facing Kingston.
  • However, we have known since 2008 that there would be reductions in council grants. What makes this disappointing is that between March 2008 and March 2010, we have seen an increase in the Council staff head count.

Council, these four examples show that rhetoric has not matched actions. We can all say that certain functions of the council are important but what are needed are actions.

I suggest that the £100,000 allegedly saved from the new theatre deal is not an actual saving. How can half a million pounds over five years be a saving?

While I would like a theatre in Kingston, I would also like an independent cinema or a boat service from here to London. These are not times to be spending money on what we would like – the question is what we must spend money on?

Adult and children services – care for the disabled and protecting the most vulnerable people – that is where £500,000 over five years should be going.

Can I change to areas where I think the administration is moving in the right direction? There have been many stories about councils sharing services and divesting functions to the private or voluntary sectors.

This is an area that this side has been calling for. This is because we can reduce our costs, carry on providing services and concentrate time and money on priority areas.

  • I welcome moves from last night’s senior staff panel that we will be looking to share the head of ITC with Sutton Council. This is good news and shows that the notion of shared services is starting to resonate.
  • However, we believe that the administration should be more ambitious – why not the whole of the IT department?
  • Why are we still navel gazing about restructuring corporate services when we should be looking at sharing these services – legal, communications and the whole of HR; not just the payroll function.
  • It is through this type of working that we can see efficiency and a reduction in staffing levels. Not for the sake of reducing staff numbers, but so that money can be used in our priority areas.

Another topic I wanted to mention, not for the political points or the function they provide, is the climate change and sustainable transport team. I can understand that this team would have contributed to the planning of sustainable transport activities, and helped reduce car usage. I have not seen any evidence of this.

However, as this is one of the very few items which the Council will be ‘doing less or not at all’ – why did we do it in the first place? This is not a huge sum of money - £40,000 – but have the administration taken a fine-tooth-comb to every area?

If it isn’t a priority now, why was it ever?

Once again, I stress this not about cheap political point scoring, but about saving money to find our priority areas.

Madame Mayor – one of the key areas, which the administration has failed on, is the better use of our assets. We own assets worth £800 million yet it was not until recently that we had a simple list.

It is extremely disappointing that this OCP project has not progressed at adequate pace. We have a document that reads like a scoping paper instead of actions or any strategic thinking.

I want to see our assets work for us – bringing an income and providing value to residents. We should be looking for partners – both public and private. I want to see options from the administration that will explore providing satellite services in better equipped, but fewer, properties.

I look forward to seeing how the administration will work with other public sector bodies – DWP, police, schools and the now secretive NHS – to share workspaces and operational units.

Of course, there are assets that are obsolete and should be sold off to generate one-off revenue. However, this should be a last resort.

Madame Mayor, we are pleased that residents will not be hit with increased council tax this year. Along with the 4th straight freeze in the GLA precept – given to you by a Conservative Mayor – it is clear this Conservative led Coalition Government are trying to help people in difficult economic times.

Madame Mayor – this Budget that I can neither fully support nor fully endorse. There are good elements but these need to be quickly built on, and poor judgements that need readdressing.

I am clear that priority areas should be our number one concern, and other areas of spending should take a back seat.

Conservative Shadow Portfolio holder Finance Councillor Priyen Patel

BUDGET SPEECH 2010

Budget Council is the opportunity that Councillors have to review the performance of this Administration - its financial and business dealings over the last year and to have a say in the financial planning and management for the coming year.

This Council for the past year and more - in relation to its management of the Council - and thus its financial management has put all its eggs in one basket - the One Council Project.

Let me say at once that we approve of the concept of the project and there are things in this budget that we in the circumstances would approve. However it must be emphasised that the Council’s financial position is not one we are happy to find ourselves in. Under a Conservative Administration things would have been much different. Over the last four years we would have dealt with things differently.

For example we take issue with is the length of time that this administration has taken to actually get on with the project.

They have dithered.

Whether this is because of a real lack of political will is hard to say - we have been told about resistance to the project within the Liberal Democrat Group. There is a great deal of change required for success in a project of this nature. Perhaps this is why it has taken them so long to get on with it. Perhaps this is why the drive and ambition in the project was not ignited for such a long time.

I am pleased to say that I believe effective Scrutiny and advice from the Opposition has helped to get the project where it is today – and that is still not far enough.

I warned in my first Budget Speech that they needed to get on with re-organising the Council – the clues were all there – traditional salami slicing of budgets would no longer suffice – radical reorganising and rethinking about how the Council operates was required - the interim Head of Environmental Services had started to give a lead – an example – he started the reorganisation of that Department – he axed his own job – too much management at the top – more emphasis to be put on service and value for money. We approved of that. .

Unbelievably however that project – reorganising Environmental Services is still going on within the One Council Project – it was the sort of prototype for One Council – it is still not completed – far too much dithering.

Two of the One Council Projects announced in a blaze of expensive publicity - the IT and Asset Programmes are hardly started. IT is now belatedly off the ground but the asset project still dormant – no life – again just too much dithering.

We should have been saving £500,000 on IT this year not £250,000 as now suggested in the budget and we should be much closer to savings in the Asset Management Project than we are.

Dithering in the last twelve months has already been identified as costing this Council at least £2million in the opportunity to save that money through the One Council Programme. The losses in opportunity to save through the project being poorly managed is continuing and under this Administration I have no confidence that it will improve.

The reality of course is that it is not the Council that loses this money but it is the Residents of Kingston who lose and end up paying the highest Council tax of any Borough in London. We now have that unhappy reputation throughout the country.

And what do we get – we always get the same old excuses – we KNOW we get a poor deal out of the government – we always have had a low grant per head of the population.

This year however Richmond and Bromley get a lower rate support grant than Kingston and even they will levy lower Council taxes than us.

Now that we are not at the bottom of the list any longer and no longer the worst off Borough in this context but still certainly the worst off Borough as far as our residents are concerned still paying the highest Council Tax in London. These two other Boroughs get worst government grants than we do but they still manage lower Council tax demands for their residents.

Its not always what you earn or the amount of money that you spend but what you spend it on that counts and up to now my experience of this administration over my nearly eight years as a Councillor is that they do not spend money wisely.

Only 26% of residents surveyed in the CAA report produced at the end of last year thought that this Council gives value for money. 74% therefore were not satisfied that the Council provided services which gave value for money.

The CAA report said that we were a Council Performing to minimum standards with a score of only two stars for Managing Finances – two stars for Managing Resources – two stars for Governing the Business and two stars for Use of Resources. So in those areas we are performing adequately meeting only minimum requirements – not high performing with a four star performance as was attained under the last Conservative administration.

I would quote New Malden High Street, The Hook Centre, the Fountain in the Market Place in Kingston and £600,000 a year to the Rose theatre as examples of the inadequacy of this administration when it comes to good housekeeping of the Council’s money. Reduction is street sweeping from fortnightly to three weekly sweeps and the Council having to ask residents to look after the Council’s own wayside verges because the Quadron Contract was not set up properly.

Of course we are proud of our education system in Kingston and we need to protect it. We pledge to put resources and effort into all the school issues facing this Council. We support the government sponsored BSF.

It was us who foresaw the education numbers crisis looming and warned them – we should have been prepared instead of fighting the rear guard action this Administration is now engaged in trying to catch up lost ground. Children taught in portacabins is just not good enough.

On this side of the Chamber we are very grateful to the Conservative Mayor of London for his foresight and empathy to at least attempt to ease the strain on householder’s wallets by freezing the mayoral precept. Without the Mayor of London keeping his promises with regards to the overspending of various departments within City Hall our financial position would be even more dire.

Not built on business plans, but constructed on hope and ill-placed optimism. This Budget book has an insulting lack of information on which Councillors and residents alike can judge the quality of the Budget. Opposition Councillors had to demand the detailed information on which to base this amendment to the Liberal Democrat Budget before you today

Mr Mayor when we were making our own plans for this meeting we were very much in the dark about the detail of the budget proposed. The documents available to Councillors and residents did not reveal enough detail. In our opinion it was not a transparent exercise.

There was lots of headline information and little detail. Since we have held meetings with the Interim Director of Finance and his officers and thank them for their explanations and the additional information made available

At this point I will introduce our amendment to the substantive or amended budget proposed by the Leader.

Our difficulty has been that we like all Local Authorities are anxious to find efficiencies within the Budget to minimise the impact on residents lives – people are undoubtedly feeling the strain of higher taxes – higher prices – job losses and lower incomes. We are looking for efficiencies but at the same time not affecting the quality of service at the point of delivery other than to enhance it.

Clearly this Budget is based on four years of poor governance as I have previously stated and I would like to emphasis that we have been meticulous in our attempt to make legitimate savings.

We made proposal regarding the re-organisation of many senior management posts within the Council which would have saved more than a million pounds. We were told that these savings were already included in the Administration’s Budget and the work being carried out within One Council. Although it was not possible for the officers to identify the particular posts because the work in One Council was not completed. Not a situation we found satisfactory.

Many of our proposals have been rejected on the basis that they already exist in the Administrations Budget. This has often been difficult to quantify and again I pay tribute the Interim Finance Director and staff for their guidance in this matter.

We know that to achieve these efficiencies will be hard work. We recognise that the officers and Executive will be hard pressed to ensure the savings set out in our amendment. We know it would increase the budget risk.

We tried to achieve a zero % budget. The problems posed by 8 years of mismanagement by the liberal democrts have made this an impossible process. It is our belief and intention that in coming years in Administration ourselves and with a Conservative Government we will be able to achieve a zero increase budget for our residents.

But a Conservative Administration will achieve these savings as set out in my amendment. The Executive Member for Finance will attend Monthly Budget Meetings with the Director of Finance where Heads of Department will be judged on their abilities to manage these budget restraints.

In our own Group Office, we have strived to set an example of how we believe budgets should be run. In 2007/08, we saved over 21% of our budget, and in 2008/09, that figure was over 24%. – this year we are on course to save over 25% over £65,000 over three years.

Neighbourhood Budgets have over the last two years been under spent – travel budgets have various in built variations – for example the Maldens and Coombe Neighbourhood Travel budget is fixed on last years spend – last years spend was £1,300 and this years budget is being set at £2000. There is plenty of scope in these and areas of non- essential spending to make huge savings without affecting front line services.

These reductions in the budget are in our view wholly achievable and

Mr Mayor I move the amendment.