Last night was the annual “Budget Council” for Bury MBC. This is normally a long night and last night was no exception.

Given the financial situation the country finds itself in this was probably the most difficult budget the Council has ever had to set. Over £14 million of money had to be taken out of what the Council spends on local services – a tough ask for any council, but especially tough for somewhere like Bury which has a long history of being poorly funded by central Government.

For the first time in history, the budget proposed by the ruling group was for 0% council tax rise (a complete freeze). This good news is thanks to the Government who are effectively forcing councils to do away with council tax rises this year to help people through the tough times.

I’ve previously posted about the savings that were proposed by the ruling group here (list A) and here (list B). As much as possible is being cut from back office systems as possible, but there are still some very tough choices.

What did the Liberal Democrats do?

Although we are in opposition in Bury, the council has ‘no overall control’ – so our votes particularly matter. We used our votes very carefully to secure a better deal for the people we represent in the Prestwich area and on a number of important changes across Bury.

The Liberal Democrat proposals, which have now been agreed, will mean:

• The Longfield Suite WILL NOT be closing. We saved it.
• Prestwich Library WILL NOT be closing on Sundays. We made sure it stays open.
• Shoppers parking charges on Fairfax Road will be FREE again (in April). (People will still have to pay to park all day to get the tram into Manchester, but this is also being reviewed.)
• The future of Local Area Partnerships  is SECURE. We have found funding so that three Local Area Managers (the people who run the popular LAPs) will be retained in a different form, and a small new COMMUNITY GRANTS FUND created for local community groups and projects. The good work of LAPs can continue.
• The Phoenix Youth Centre in St Mary’s Park will be kept open for community use.
• We secured some common sense plans around “SMARTER RECYCING” to help people recylce better – different sized bins (small, big and very big) to suit different households), and particular attention at religious holidays like after Christmas and before Passover.
• Some of the poorest tenants in Bury, renting properties from Six Town Housing, will see their rent increases REDUCED after Lib Dem intervention.

I spoke a couple of times in the debate. Firstly was to move our amendment on the Housing Revenue Account which provided for a lower level of rent increases in Bury’s “Council’ houses. This had been proposed at over 6.5% – too high in my opinion. Council’s don’t have much flexibility on this, but Bury does have some, so we proposed using £150,000 of balances to reduce this to less than 6%.

Not a huge difference, but I know we’re in incredibly tough times, and this money will help some of the people in Bury who work hard on  low incomes.

The second time I spoke was when it was Labour’s turn to propose their amendment. As usual with Labour there are some good bits that you wish you could support, and then some very bad bits that you can’t support! Labour proposed to reverse around £1.3 million of the cuts proposed by the Conservatives (the good bit!), but then proposed to pay for them on the whole by creating a £1.3 million “hole” in the budget. It wasn’t clear how they proposed to pay for the hole – what they were actually cutting was residential care for elderly people, foster parent payments and residential children’s care – I don’t think they meant to cut those things, but then if they didn’t it just meant they’d be making 50 people redundant somewhere else.

Labour amaze me how they have their ‘head in the sand’ on this. Every day the country has to pay £120 MILLION pounds just on debt interest on the debts left by the last Labour Government. That’s why we’re in the mess we’re in. Their amendment, creating another ‘hole’, was typical and thankfully it wasn’t passed by the Council.

Cllr Richard Baum, our Finance Spokesperson, moved our main proposals – he does tend to put his speeches on his website should you wish to read!

The papers for the Council meeting are here. Any questions, or comments, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Tim

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