Councillor Marc Jones, leader of the Plaid Cymru group on Wrecsam Council, made this speech to explain his group's opposition to the budget:
"The background to this budget is 15 years of austerity. Austerity is not a given - it's a political choice. The choice from the UK Government determines how much money reaches public services such as councils, the NHS, fire and police.
"With reference to the Fire Authority, of which I'm a member, the levy this council is being asked to pay is very high and that's because the UK Government settled a pay claim but did not provide the funding to pay for it. That puts additional pressure on the Fire Authority and consequently council budgets.
"Wrecsam's budget has its own particular problems:
"Firstly there's the £1.7m hole in the middle of it like a Polo mint. The hole is for unspecified cuts. Given that this authority has had to make £23m in in-year savings in 2023-4 and struggled to do so, I wonder how it will make an additional unspecified £1.7m in cuts? The leadership constantly tell us when we, as opposition councillors, want to maintain a service that we have to find savings elsewhere - what would we cut instead? But now we see that holes of £1.7m can be left in budgets without explanation beyond 'the savings will be found'. That worries me - it's not a balanced budget, it's a hope for the best budget.
"Secondly, it is imposing a £5m cut on school budgets. Schools, like most of the services this council funds, don't have other income streams - they're there to provide a good education for our children. School budgets are overwhelmingly spent on staff - teachers, teaching assistants and essential support staff. So cuts in their budgets means cuts in those staff - that will mean 1:1 support being cut, experienced teachers being replaced with less experienced cheaper teachers and ultimately larger class sizes as classes are merged. Even if schools can get through this year on their reserves, they will more than likely be facing this the following year. Is this going to improve pupils' education? Is this going to prevent more young people falling through the net and ending up needing more specialist (and more expensive) care? Have we carried out an equality impact assessment on how these cuts will affect pupils and their families, let alone the school staff expected to rise to this challenge?
"Thirdly, the only element of the budget untouched by these cuts appears to be councillors. We call again for the Exec Board to be reduced from 10 to 8. Why should councillors be immune to this pain?
"But the underlying problem here is not particular to Wrecsam - the safety net that the council provides is full of holes. Whether it's our roads, growing demand for children's and adult social care or education. That safety net is close to snapping completely.
"Wrecsam's budget has its own particular problems:
"Firstly there's the £1.7m hole in the middle of it like a Polo mint. The hole is for unspecified cuts. Given that this authority has had to make £23m in in-year savings in 2023-4 and struggled to do so, I wonder how it will make an additional unspecified £1.7m in cuts? The leadership constantly tell us when we, as opposition councillors, want to maintain a service that we have to find savings elsewhere - what would we cut instead? But now we see that holes of £1.7m can be left in budgets without explanation beyond 'the savings will be found'. That worries me - it's not a balanced budget, it's a hope for the best budget.
"Secondly, it is imposing a £5m cut on school budgets. Schools, like most of the services this council funds, don't have other income streams - they're there to provide a good education for our children. School budgets are overwhelmingly spent on staff - teachers, teaching assistants and essential support staff. So cuts in their budgets means cuts in those staff - that will mean 1:1 support being cut, experienced teachers being replaced with less experienced cheaper teachers and ultimately larger class sizes as classes are merged. Even if schools can get through this year on their reserves, they will more than likely be facing this the following year. Is this going to improve pupils' education? Is this going to prevent more young people falling through the net and ending up needing more specialist (and more expensive) care? Have we carried out an equality impact assessment on how these cuts will affect pupils and their families, let alone the school staff expected to rise to this challenge?
"Thirdly, the only element of the budget untouched by these cuts appears to be councillors. We call again for the Exec Board to be reduced from 10 to 8. Why should councillors be immune to this pain?
"But the underlying problem here is not particular to Wrecsam - the safety net that the council provides is full of holes. Whether it's our roads, growing demand for children's and adult social care or education. That safety net is close to snapping completely.
"Which brings us back to the 15 years of austerity. Councils across Wales and England face a bleak future - some in England have already fallen over the edge and effectively declared themselves bankrupt. Another year or so of this austerity and councils in Wales will probably follow suit. There's a lot of finger pointing at the Labour Welsh Government's poor decision making of late - and that's a fair and valid point.
"But let's not get away from the fact that, while head teachers are shaking buckets to raise funds for their schools, there are millionaires who are becoming billionaries because this UK Government has siphoned off public funds for donors and cronies to profit from dodgy PPE and the like. That's where the fingers should be pointed and that's why this budget is costing taxpayers more and delivering less.
"I have a lot of sympathy with officers trying to make this budget work. But we as councillors have to say with a united voice - not just here but across Wales and across the border - that enough is enough. If we don’t make that stand against the lack of funding from central govt then we will see that safety net grow ever more tattered and people will get hurt. Enough is enough."
No comments:
Post a Comment