27 January (Part 2) - “Government grants are designed to hand more money to Labour boroughs”
The
Cabinet meeting held last week adopted the usual format and was commendably
short although arguably the financial aspects were somewhat behind the times; it
reported only on the situation last November.
Back then the overspend was forecast to be £4·134 million which was a £586,000
improvement on the month before. As always it was Children’s and Adults’ Services
that ran away with most of the money but the other departments are all in
trouble to some degree. Fortunately there has been a reduction in the number of
people in emergency accommodation or the figures would have been worse. It looks likely that some borrowing will be needed by the end of the year.
Cabinet Member David Leaf in his shortest ever address said the £4 million
overspend was just under 2%
and better than many other Councils but he was clearly not being complacent about it.
Cabinet Member Chris Taylor (Adults’ Service) waffled at some length but I
failed to find anything sufficiently notable to warrant comment here.
No Councillor wished to comment on or question the few figures that had been given.
Council Leader O’Neill said that unusually for the January meeting there is
still “a budget gap for next year” and that is because the Government is late
providing all the information although the overall draft settlement is now known but “we haven’t yet got clarity”.
The Interim Director of Finance and Corporate Services said she was not able to
add much to what the Leader had said but nevertheless managed to speak for nine minutes. Bexley should
be able to scrape under the Council Tax referendum level of 2·99% plus the 2%
Social Care precept but new Government regulations mean that residents will no
longer be given any information about the precept; it will all be bundled up as
one single figure. The Council still has no information about its grant to
offset the National Insurance increase.
All fees and charges will be increased by approximately 2% (although if one
looks at the detail it is not difficult to find increases a long way into double
figures) and the Council Tax reduction scheme will be changed again. The poorest
people will be asked to pay 30% of the tax due instead of 25%. So that’s a 20%
increase for them. Even Rachel Reeves would be hard pressed to hit them harder.
Increases to short term parking fees are variable but typically around 6% but a lot less
for all day commuter parking such as that around Abbey Wood station where
Council greed has already impacted anticipated demand. However the four hour
rate gets a 33% bashing.
Councillor Leaf said that “about half the boroughs in London are to get a share
of a £600 million pot” which has been part funded by abolition of “the Services
Grant” which used to benefit Bexley but won’t any more. Instead the money will go to Greenwich, £3·8
million, Lewisham 5·3, Hackney 9·7 and Newham, £11 million and Bexley zilch. He
said the convoluted calculations that result in those figures would only make
sense to “an economist of the calibre of the current Chancellor of the
Exchequer”. It is expressly “designed to hand more money over to Labour run
Councils”. The only non-Labour borough to receive
those funds was Independent Tower Hamlets. The new formulae are such that whichever
grant is involved Bexley will always receive less money than it did before.
“The Highways funding currently being hyped up by the Government comes with significant strings”.
Cabinet Member Munur (Growth) said new job starts which had been a success story
are in jeopardy because of the National Insurance increases and he is “already
starting to see some companies pull back”.
The CCTV contract taken out in 2009 expires in March. Much of the equipment is
“no longer fit for purpose and technology has moved on”. The replacement will be
digital and include both static and mobile cameras. The new system will not
require a control centre and will be less costly than before. No servers, no
hard wired cameras, no dedicated monitors, better image quality and greater flexibility.
Cabinet Member Diment (Neighbourhoods) said that Bexley residents are being
adversely affected “by the bizarre decisions of this government”. Despite that,
bin collection rates are improved - better than 99·9% - and recycling is back over 50%. Roundabouts have been
improved aesthetically with more to come.
Parking charges will be “increased by 2% rounded to the nearest 10 pence” and it
is better to “increase them gradually rather than larger increases
periodically”. The Mayor has been asked to raise parking and moving traffic
offence fines above the current level. The request is for a staggering 23% increase.
I was disappointed to hear Councillor Diment repeat the dubious claim that Bexley’s garden
waste service is one of the cheapest which even if it were true rather
ignores the considerable number of boroughs which make no charge at all. It will be going
up by another £10 in April which makes
my investment in a shredder an even greater bargain.
30 roads are due for resurfacing at a cost of £3·5 million and there will be more new pedestrian crossings.
Cabinet Member Seymour said that the Governmentְ’s failure to exempt care workers
from increased National Insurance contributions is causing several millions of
pound’s worth of problems which is making negotiating new contracts very
difficult. “This Labour Government is making the lives of those at the bottom of
the pile as difficult as possible.”
Labour Leader Borella welcomed “the certainty that the Labour Government has
provided” and accepted that there were “caveats” to the pothole funding. He
regretted that no Conservative boroughs had benefited from the Recovery Grant.
Councillor Diment reiterated the statement made at the Transport Users’ meeting.
“Despite what the Labour Press Release
(PDF) says there is not materially more money available for potholes than there was last year.”