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News and Comment February 2023

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2 February (Part 2) - The Cabinet meeting report. The consensus was that it makes for sombre reading

This week’s Cabinet meeting had me reflecting on how much better run Bexley Council’s meetings are than twelve years ago when I attended my first. Maybe it was because in 2010 I still had some memory of how businesses ran meetings that I judged them so harshly or it might be that in 2023 I have grown accustomed to the way Bexley Council operates. Whatever the truth of it, and possibly I am getting soft in my old age, I came to the conclusion that Bexley’s Cabinet meeting on Monday was a reasonably competent affair despite the fact that I have documentary proof that three of them are prepared to lie to save their own skins when necessary. In fairness I should add that all of that is more than ten years ago.

As usual the main subject was finance which is not the most exciting of subjects but fortunately there was a ULEZ spat towards the end of the meeting to liven things up somewhat.

The current financial year has so far seen an overspend of £2,912,000, a figure that has been steadily rising and now 2% above budget. As always it is due to Social Care costs being far too high due to exceptional demand plus some Court decisions that went against the Council. There has been some Government help but obviously not enough. Council Tax collection rates are a little under target which doesn’t help. Cabinet Member David Leaf thought that the current position was “a good achievement all things considered” but reminded his colleagues that the £2·9 million overspend masked an underspend on housing.

Cabinet Member Richard Diment added to the overspend woes by revealing that Education has gone well over budget and likely to be £3·5 million above it by the end of March and nearly all of it is due to the increased cost of SEN travel. User numbers have gone from 634 to 833 in only five years and costs have risen further due to inflation and the shortage of service providers. Each child requiring transport costs many thousands per year with out of borough destinations averaging £5,000 more than in-borough.

Cabinet Member Sue Gower related how housing incomers requiring large houses can cost literally millions of pounds each.

Council Tax will, subject to formal rubber stamping, go up by another 4·99% in April.

Labour Leader Stefano Borella summed it all up with the word sombre and went on to blame 13 years of Tory Government which is difficult to refute. Why he found it necessary to drag the tax avoiding Nadhim Zahawi into his argument disappointed Baroness O’Neill and probably everyone else. She had no argument with the word sombre.

Councillor Leaf also struck a political note but a more relevant one; that Sadiq Khan will again take a double digit Council Tax increase taking his impositions to a 57% increase since Londoners foolishly elected him.

Councillor Craske announced that he will not be raising car parking charges by 30% this year. Maybe he has belatedly recognised the Law of Diminishing Returns

LEZ LEZIt was Councillor Caroline Newton (Conservative, East Wickham) who first uttered the dreaded acronym ULEZ. What impact will it have on Council services and finances and has Khan delivered any benefits to Bexley?

Counclllor Borella (Labour, Slade Green) countered by asking what impact Liz Truss had on Bexley residents, a much bigger one than ULEZ he estimated on top of which some of Bexley Council’s fees and charges are going up by 100%. (Actually 163% in one case.)

It was Cabinet Member Seymour who raised the stakes further on ULEZ. “It is a tax founded on falsehood and myth. The Mayor is ferried around in three Hummers and concerned about air pollution” and there are claims that up to 40% of children in hospital are there because of respiratory problems but it being Winter there are a lot of coughs and colds around.

The figures are being “spun” by a Labour Mayor who cannot balance his books and bailed out with millions from Government. He has no idea of what it is like in the suburbs and how may people have no alternative but to drive. “It is nothing to do with health.”

For care providers the result will be catastrophic and the service will collapse. The Mayor is taxing those who can least afford it and “members opposite cannot really think it is acceptable.”

But Councillor Borella did and returned to the 30% parking charge increases which have a big effect on the poor as do hospital parking charges and the coming fuel tax increases. How being against these extra charges but in favour of the ULEZ Tax is perhaps a strange position to adopt. He claimed that come the next election people will not vote based on ULEZ, it will be housing and other things. Well they certainly did not vote on ULEZ at the last mayoral election because it was not in the Labour manifesto.

The Council Leader said she had received heartbreaking letters from people who will not be able to care for relatives or afford £300 for a month of hospital visiting which is where Councillor Borella reminded her that once upon a time she was in favour of pollution taxes. I was surprised she did not remind him that pollution levels have reduced considerably during the past twelve years and the restrictions were fare less draconian that Khan’s.

Cabinet Member Leaf managed to answer one of Caroline Newton’s questions. Sadiq Khan takes £36 million from Bexley residents annually. He also said that the increased fees and charges average 2% while in Greenwich their target increase is 10%. Having looked through all the new fees it is obvious that those being increased are going up by much more than 2% on average, in fact few are that low, but the average will be offset by the freeze on car parking charges. It looks like deception continues to be alive and well in the borough of Bexley.

 

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