Budget Council

Shadow Executive Member for Finance Councillor Priyen Patel

Budget 2012

Mr Mayor,

This budget is under similar situations as the one produced last year. Complex and sometimes not popular decisions and negative economic outlooks are pouring down on public bodies, including local authorities and this council.

We have seen from the autumn statement that due to a slower the hoped for economic recovery and the continued gloom across The Channel, a further year of consolidation will be necessary - this cold quite easily be extended further.

What we do know is that whatever happens at the next general election - a Tory win, a labour win or another cosy coalition - the first year or two will continue to be difficult for Kingston council. Further savings above and beyond what has been identified will be needed.

Turning to Kingston, and this budget, we continue to search for further cuts and efficiencies and drive best value from our contractors. Much of this budget - as has already been explained by the Executive Member - is a continuation from the budget last year (my first budget) so I do not intend to cover old ground.

However, key similarity from last year’s Budget and this evenings Budget is the freeze in council tax. This will be welcomed by residents in Kingston and will go some distance to help residents who are suffering from rising costs in other areas of life - transport, fuel and below index wages.

What we do in choosing to freeze council tax has a real impact on residents, as an opposition which tabled a motion on this; we will be principally calling for a freeze in council tax throughout this term.

From this side of the chamber we will not only be looking for cuts but – and this sounds obvious – but a better ways to run the authority and take advantage of new funding streams and policy shifts.

Two in particular come to mind; business rates and the new homes bonus.

Now I know there are concerns on the operation and impact, but the overriding principle of both schemes is to build more. More money will flow if more businesses move to and build in Kingston; a once again, extra cash if additional homes are built in Kingston.

This is a new concept for many Cllrs and a principle which untried - certainly in the past few decades or to my knowledge. The full repercussion of these policies won't be known for a number of years but work on attracting inward investment from businesses and more family homes should start now as neighbouring councils have done so.

I now want to turn to a welcomed move from the administration in grants giving. All of us would want to support local charities, clubs and good causes. And while we make some significant grants to a number of groups to help us provide additionality in the services we provide, a thorough review is desperately needed.

The council needs to look at cost drivers and wholesale reductions in services, which are needed, and strategically allocate residents money to groups and organisations which may help reduce demand from the council. Essentially, we need to help groups scale-up and start delivering more than ad-hoc services.

One of the cost drivers within the budget, and an actual risk, is the level of homelessness in the borough and the negative cost pressure faces the council. Looking at this strategically, we need to have more charities and third sector providers, or bigger jut bigger ones, to assist us.

This is where targeted grants help us, helps residents and helps groups scale-up. Looking at this example, Kingston obviously suffers from the lack of these types of organisations - delivering short term accommodation an advice - as we have not traditionally suffered from this problem. That is where not consultants, but simply looking at best practise and stealing good ideas from inner London boroughs can help and should be taking place now.

I’d now like to turn to commissioning and shared services.

We welcome the aim of the council to become a commissioning council – one where we are less involved in operations and more like purchasers for our residents, or where we join our resources with other local authorities.

I am concerned that of the ten projects the administration has identified and started work on, only three have actual start dates – audit and counter fraud, environment and HR. Five the projects have ‘to be confirmed’ next to them and the rest are depended on various procedural issues.

The interesting aspect of this, and I’ll take just one as an example – One Kingston Project 10: Finance. The starting date of the programme is not defined; there is no anticipated finish date; nothing in forward investment; the project is still in identification stage and the savings still be confirmed, and the administration has projected a £500,000 savings in total.

Now that is a question about speed, financial robustness and ambition.

If the risk profile within the budget is correct, for every month we slip in this area, it could cost us £600,000. To be clear, that is for every month of slippage. How can we assess this if we do not even know, against savings in future years, when the starting point of the operations will be?

I further question the speed at which the administration is moving with the entire commissioning agenda, not just this project or this year, but from years ago. Why did other local authorities – of all political colours start going down the commissioning route straight after the Gershon Review [in 2005] and we are still in the ‘to be confirmed’ mode?

After Gershon, local authorities piled in to start sharing services and bringing – and embedding – teams from various directorates together.

For example, Oxfordshire Council established a focus on core activities. Their shared services programme was approved in 2007, and brought together the operational aspects of Financial Services, Finance and Treasury Management, Accounting and Human Resources into one place. The programme was completed in May 2008 [14 months after approval].

· ­ Achieve savings of £4.5m per annum

· ­ Deliver a consistent, reliable service across all areas the council

Due to the success of this, in April 2009 a number of additional teams transferred into the shared service, including cleaning, occupational health and staff care service. This has only happened here in the past year or two.

Once again, this shows real purpose and a way of thinking that is original. When we look at the some of the projects in this council, they are small and less ambitious than other councils – excluding the waste project. However, I would hope that with further savings to find and less salami to slice, greater and more ambitious propositions can be found.

One area which I urge the Administration to look at is commercialisation. We have done centralisation through finance teams and assets being brought under one umbrella, and collaboration in working with other local authorities, but we have yet to look at commercialisation.

This boat may have sailed as Kingston is not at the forefront as we are often told, but trailing behind. Hertford Council developed a payroll service – with a private company, not a charity or third sector outfit, but a fully fledged private firm – and took that service to the market. It now only provides payroll services to other local authorities and numerous other public sector agencies [including the local care trust].

Being slow is not contained to commissioning alone.

The golden goose – our assets – is still probably a negative drain on the budget. We had a policy and resources meeting in which we discussed the containment and security of a now disused council property instead of the potential of the site.

The council has roughly £800million in assets, including this building, and all of them need to be assessed for adequacy and feasibility. Maybe this building isn’t fit for purpose and could be better used for the council in the private sector earning a rent. Maybe that could be said for the entire site?

For as long as I have known this council, assets and the lack of a coherent plan have always been discussed and both sides have generally appreciated this. We have had micro policy shifts by moving the assets function into the centre, under a very able officer, but still no plan [appreciating this hopefully may change soon with the assets working group]. However, we do see ad-hoc sales from time to time and this runs counter to my personal judgement – not the singular sales, but the principle of selling council assets before we actually have a plan.

I’d like to see the council swiftly publish a plan for the councils assets and move to a stage where they are working for us, and become a positive costing for us.

Moving onto staffing costs that are obviously a large expense for any organisation of this size. I am pleased that costs have decreased across the board [a fall of over 8% year-on-year in December 2011]. I do however have a concern over the interims that we hire – which is north of £3million.

The labour market remains fundamentally an employers market. I wonder what would happen if we advertised these roles on a cost basis we want on either short-term contracts or a temporary basis. I suspect we would have applications and be able to choose applicants at more reasonable costs.

I’ve tried to make this speech less about numbers – which I’m sure every councillor has been deluged with for the past few months – but about the principles that we as an opposition will hold the administration to account on.

I could have said more about the debt levels within the council and the need for potentially more debt for new schools, or the reserve levels but these have already been aired in policy resources.

For the concerns outlined above – and while accepting many of the good points – I shall not be voting for this budget.

Thanks you mr mayor.

Shadow Executive Member for Finance Councillor Priyen Patel

Mr Mayor,

There is no doubt that these are difficult times financially. For our part we are pleased that for a second time Kingston Council will not be raising its Council Tax. Residents will still understand however that in these hard times we still pay the highest Council tax in London and one of the highest in the country.

In Kingston we should be grateful to the London Mayor, Boris Johnston for not raising the Mayoral precept this yea r and even managing a small percentage cut – and please remember in a couple of month’s time, that his rival was responsible for most irresponsible spending during his time in office and huge crippling hikes in Council Tax which had a really major impact on the Council Taxes paid by our residents.

I am worried about many issues in this Budget, the apparent return to salami slicing, saving a few quid here by cutting a lolly pop lady and a few quid there by cutting the wayside verge grass cutting contract – a large slice out of the adult social care budget and the learning and children’s budget by over £5 million and yet 3.2million spent on interim staff arrangements and £20k on re-badging car parks and yet a further £60k on Tolworth Broadway , a Liberal Democrat vanity project if there ever was one.

£14 million will be spent on financing administration debt on short term projects and yet we are no closer to solving the finance issue for a new secondary school in North Kingston or adequate financial provision for our Primary Schools. Whatever anyone says PFI is surely not the way forward.

Many on-going projects for joint service arrangements with other Councils seem to be stalled. I am disappointed that the Leader trumpeted a piece of paper signed by him and the Leader of Sutton you know “Peace in our Time” and all that.

I am afraid it doesn’t look good. There are ten shared service projects on the go and only one of them looks anywhere near completion after months and months of expensive deliberation . The outcomes of these negotiations are looking very sparse and I wonder whether there is in fact any political will behind them. Listening to the Executive Member for Finance today we can see that there really is no appetite in this Council for shared service. There is a very small minded and small Council mentality here.

Its taking far too long – they are not saving enough money – they are so incompetent in pushing these arrangements through that I am not surprised to see that the savings are so negligible and disappointing. It’s all too slow, too little, too late. It appears to me that there are vague project descriptions and aims, talk of potential savings, but no reality or detailed costing and most of the projects lack scoping, robustness or direction with no definitive time frame and target completion dates.

It is also not very clear how the savings outlined in the table of savings in the budget documentation will actually be achieved. It seems very much a document which outlines the aims of various cut saving initiatives, actually more a wish list with figures attached with no substantial detail as to how those savings will truly be achieved.

Lastly I want to mention the on line Budget Consultation which it seems may have been an afterthought with a very short consultation period, about a month. We know that the Administration could well improve its consultation processes in a number of areas but in this case particularly with only 140 respondents t the exercise was poorly managed.

It was interesting however that the respondents did consistently indicate their desire for more voluntary sector and partner organisation in support of some services, a reduction in the number of consultants that we use, a reduction in the salaries of top earners and a funding cut for the Rose Theatre. These are largely areas that we would agree with and now look to this Administration to do something about.

I am unable to support this Budget Mr Mayor for many of the reasons outlined. There are areas which we agree with. We certainly agree with the zero rise in Council Tax for example and therefore at the vote I will be abstaining.

Conservative Group Leader Councillor Howard Jones

Budget Council 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 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.

Conservative Group Leader Councillor Howard Jones