Cheadle and Gatley Lib Dems are moving
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by Lib Dem team on 25 November, 2015
Cllr Keith Holloway is warning of the effects on Stockport of George Osborne’s proposed cuts to social care, parks, libraries, roads and other services in the borough.
Keith said “The Conservatives need to understand that when they make these decisions, they are not just changing numbers on a spreadsheet. They are affecting people’s lives. Elderly people who rely on social care. Motorists who drive on our roads. Children who attend our schools. The Lib Dems will continue to fight for local people and do the very best we can for Stockport with the money available.”
It is currently predicted that Stockport will have to cut day-to-day spending by more than £21 million next year, on top of annual savings of more than £50 million already made. If the Conservatives continue with the level of cuts they’ve promised, Stockport will have lost out on more than £800 million in spending on services to residents by 2020.
23 Comments
Time to reduce the number of councillors we have – I know this has been mentioned before but why would turkeys vote for Xmas? We do not need three councillors per area.
As Tesco say – every little bit hells!
Agree Bruce.
What does the third councillor, Graham Greenhalgh do? I’ve not seen him linked to anything in the Cheadle and Gatley ward since he was elected in May. I think he replaced Pam King who stood down this year, but as he doesn’t appear to be playing an active political role in the area, was her replacement really necessary?
Petronica – we’re a team, and Graham works hard for local people just as Keith and I do. Have to say we’d struggle to deal with the amount of work that comes our way without three councillors. Graham takes the lead on roads issues.
Bruce/Phil – The challenge for the council, and the councillors, is it’s no good us just coming up with one option to save a few percent of the savings we need. We have to put together a budget that saves £21 million next year, on top of the £50 million we’ve already saved on day-to-day spending.
Reducing the number of councillors is always an option if we want to save around £300,000 in three years time, though whether it would work, I don’t know. It doesn’t really help with saving £21 million next year though, and it doesn’t stop the Conservative cuts to social care, parks, roads, etc. which would still have to go ahead.
Iain – stop Tory bashing for once and do something positive – £300k is still worth saving. How many more £300ks are there around?
Not only will it save money reducing Councillors, but it will also probably improve and speed up decision making – have hear of too many cooks spoil the broth?
Reducing some of the number of people who are working in jobs that have been created specially for them so that they wouldn’t go to an industrial tribunal to claim unfair dismissal.
Bruce – what do you think we’ve been doing for the last 5 years? We’ve cut day to day council spending by more than 50 million and we know we’ve for to do the same again. Yes, we are looking at everything. But we need to look properly, not just assume that something that seems good on the surface is with doing when you look at the detail. Looking at *all* the savings we can make is exactly what we are doing.
Jennifer – if you have any examples, please let me know.
Iain – your lot were in office for most of the five years you must share the responsibility for most of the cuts.
Typical Dimble – blame everyone else (especially Tory)
Iain,
You are opposed to all cuts but the money had to come from somewhere.
Currently the amount of Tax taken is about as much (as % of GDP) that any Government has ever managed to take in peacetime, so realistically tax can’t increase..
You could try and tax companies like Amazon more, but all that would happen is that they would pay their workers a bit less, so less income tax would reduce.
You campaigned against the Tax Credits cuts. Those cuts have to be taken elsewhere, and local government is part of that elsewhere (pat yourself of the back for a successful campaign)
I doubt Amazon pay over the minimum wage so your suggestion that tax revenue will reduce is probably flawed.
Rick, it is fact that we are currently collecting as much Tax (in % terms of GDP) as any government has done in peacetime, therefore it is very unlikely that you can raise more.
Raises tax will have a consequence elsewhere in the economy, whether it is lower wages, higher charges, reduced investment, reduced dividends (which is what pension schemes rely on – so hence reduced private pensions) etc etc.
You can’t tax a country into prosperity
We have far to many levels of councillors and leader over the whole of Manchester need to look at the whole area and processes to make cuts. Why have separate HR and Finance Departments. For each council when one could do the job ie based in Manchester. Am sure some of the managers could then go and leave the reduced admin to get on with it. The NHS in Manchester has had to do this, so why not the councils.
Hi Arthur – councils are doing exactly that, and looking at where we can share services. There are often good reasons not to (sometimes it just wouldn’t save much money) but it’s already being done. For example, Stockport, Trafford and Rochdale have one procurement organisation and we share transport, waste, pensions and some other IT functions. We’re proposing sharing highways officers as part of next year’s savings. It’s not simple though.
Also worth pointing out that the number of managers, especially senior people, has massively reduced in Stockport over the last few years. That can be a real challenge for the council trying to introduce radical change, but it has to be done. Not every council has done this (e.g. Oldham).
Cutting councillors is as Iain says goes nowhere near the saving required, the real costs are in council staff and their defined benefit pensions (which are an incredibly massive burden which no one in the private sector gets anymore). For example, the chief executive Eamonn Boylan has a salary approaching 200k plus pension plus generous expenses.
Is this good value for money?
In a market based economy such jobs are subject to hire and fire but this does not occur in the public sector so one has to be suspicious – i.e. there seems to be a lot of jobs for life.
Anyway I do agree this is worrying as the Conservatives appear to have broken their pledge to keep council tax low by allowing a compounding increase of up to 4% per year when we have 0% inflation – a significant real terms increase year after year. A quick calculation shows in Stockport a band D property could be around £500 per year more in council tax by 2020.
I am looking to see if the lib dems can somehow keep this a lot lower.
Iain – if that salary is correct, how can you justify the salary of the Chief Exec?
Who else would employ him on that kind of salary, apart from another council?
This is the reason the Tories get in power. They sell a good story dupe the gullible ones into voting for them and then lie or simply ignore what was in their manifesto. Cameron went on a poster saying no
Cuts to the NHS- now look what’s happening. Ask any economist and they will tell you that an effective debt reduction programme is more effective over 20-25 years, not 5. This is ideology pure and simple and as usual, local councils are being blamed for cuts implemented by central government – bizarre!!
Alan, I totally agree that the Conservatives are a bunch of lying toads.
But so do the other parties:
Ask the LibDems about University fees.
Labour stated that they wouldn’t increase Income Tax, and when they got elected, increased National Insurance (NI), because the gullible believed that there is a difference between the two, when in actual fact they both go into the same pot.
I meant to add that it was Labour who introduced Tuition fees, and then increased them from £1000 to £3000 per year, even though there was nothing in their manifesto about this
And it was Labour who changed the rules on immigration, which has resulted in a net gain of approx. 2-300,000 immigrants each year since 1997, again you’ll not see mention of that in their manifesto.
So all parties are at best economical with the truth when it comes to what they promise and what they actually do
Iain, correct me if I’m wrong, but Stockport has the highest Council Tax in Gtr Mcr? Surely there is some (relative) fat to be trimmed? Why is it highest in the only LD ran council?
Oh and you don’t seem to mention the 2% increase you’ll no doubt be whacking on top to fund social care, or are you not going to be passing that increase onto us already overburdened residents?
Hi Phil,
Stockport is the second-lowest spending council in Greater Manchester. That gives you some idea of how little fat there is to be trimmed.
Councils get their funding from a mix of council tax and government funding. Stockport gets less government funding that the other nine GM councils so, even though we spend less than nearly all of them, we have to have higher council tax to make the numbers add up.
Few details of the 2% Osborne Tax for social care have come out from the government – when we know more about it, we’ll let you know.