Liberal Democrats vote down Ealing Council budget and Council Tax proposals

Each year at the end of February, councils vote on a budget and the level of Council Tax that residents will pay for the forthcoming year of services. Ealing Council debated proposals this year and the Liberal Democrat group voted down proposals for a number of reasons.

First of all it must be said that the national Conservative party has been reducing money for our Council, essentially robbing money from our residents before they knew they have lost it.
Also there is little evidence that the Government is willing to help solve the national funding shortfall affecting all councils for Adult Social Care.

Interestingly we only get a small income for what are called “Winter pressures”. Does Theresa May not realise that vulnerable people need care all year round, not just in Winter!

And on business rates Councils could keep the money it generated but now they have to give back 25% to the government. Councils should have access to the money. That is our money, not the government’s!

We see high and increasing levels of knife and other violent crime as THIS council plans to cut Children’s Centres. A council Scrutiny Panel heard evidence that intervention at an early age can reduce some of these crimes. So the short term savings by cutting some Children’s Centres appears to be a false economy.

Elsewhere we will see many libraries managed by volunteers, where the evidence shows will not by fully sustainable in a few years’ time. I hope if any of our community libraries close in the future that the Council does not blame the community.

The form of Ealing Council has been to take many legal actions which can cost a lot of money but sadly many are lost, wasting money. A recent one, was its aim to sell a town hall. The Council lost the legal case at the High Courts.

Ealing Council wants to stop Ward Forum meetings and has cut the ward forum budgets. By trying to avoid listening to residents it is essentially saying “We know best!”

There is a great set of evidence showing that many roads in Chiswick have speeding traffic and therefore are a risk to pedestrians and cyclists. But the budget proposals do not appear to be using money to reduce speed at these known hotspots in Chiswick.

We saw in the past few months that additional staff were needed to be hired and over 500 hours of overtime were needed, when the parking system was changed, which led to much confusion, annoyance and a loss to Ealing Council financially. The Council should have been more aware than it was.

In summary many of our services are worse than they should be (dirty streets for example), our financial reserves have fallen over the last year by £20M and will again by £5M this year!