Demanding Support For a ‘People’s Budget’

Members of unions Unite, Unison, PCS and RMT watched from the gallery on 25 February as Leicester City Council voted on its annual budget.

Since 2011 over £85 million has been cut from local services in Leicester. Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby’s latest cuts budget was passed by the overwhelmingly Labour council.

The city council’s Unison branch has publicly criticised the budget for ‘disguising’ cuts. Gary Garner, Unison branch secretary, stated: “Leicester City Council is hiding behind a policy of organisational change and reviews and carrying out, by stealth, the coalition government’s programme of public sector cuts.”

Having seen cuts to SureStart centres, adventure playgrounds, elderly care homes, homeless provision and community centres alongside much more, it’s difficult to think what there is left to go. However, the Labour-controlled council has found a way, by raising council tax to the maximum threshold, just shy of triggering a referendum, and increasing rents.

Only two voices spoke out in the council against these proposals, the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition councillors Wayne Naylor and Barbara Potter. They blasted the Labour council for passing on the cuts to working class people and proposed an alternative – a ‘People’s Budget’.

Instead of stashing away a further £6.9 million on top of the existing £49 million in reserves, why not spend that money now on maintaining jobs and services while launching a fight for the needed money from central government?

Wayne Naylor said: “You say you’re saving the reserves for a rainy day. Well look around you – it’s raining now! We need to save these services today before they’re gone tomorrow.”

Here follows the speech delivered by Cllr Wayne Naylor on February 25, 2015 to the Labour City Council’s budget-setting meeting. Every Labour councillor voted to oppose their amendment.

Today I am pleased to put forward our first Budget amendment to this chamber. Some months ago we held a Peoples Budget Conference, giving people the opportunity to tell us what they felt was important to them. The key findings of this was that local services are important to people and that they should be protected across all areas of the council. Below this over-riding theme we found that there were 4 local themes that people wanted addressing:-

1.Accessibility to Services
2.Bus subsidies
3.Local training/Employment/Apprenticeships
4.Advice and Guidance for Young People

We had discussions with the Director of Finance around what could and couldn’t be achieved, the proposal put before you today was deemed as a PERMISSIBLE Budget proposal of one year’s expenditure, to ease the disaster of cuts, even if this only buys a small amount of time. The rolling programme of reviews has little detail at this point though a figure of £35 million has been reported in today’s Mercury. Unison in their response to the Budget have asked that strategy for reserves is altered to start taking the strain of potential cuts now rather than to wait until next year We support this stance, thus have proposed the return of £5.9 million to be used as a “support fund across all departments on a “need to use” basis.

We have proposed £1 million to be used across the 4 local themes we have previously stated and include in this £40,000 to fund a Funding officer position to work with the Voluntary Sector to assist in gaining funds desperately needed by local groups. In doing this we recognise the value that the voluntary sector plays in our communities.

The rest of the £1bmillion will be used for Bus subsides that we hope will strengthen the poorer areas of our city and will take away some of the issues people are facing, where buses stop early or there are no Sunday services. Putting money into Accessibility to services would bridge the gap in changes made to local services in communities through a range of community buildings, encouraging internet usage and supplying Wi-Fi. These positions could also be made open as training opportunities in customer service, building the council’s ability to provide training and apprenticeships that lead ultimately to employment. We hope that some of the funding offered will also fund places in training and apprenticeships to outside providers.

Our proposal is about listening to people and making a difference at a time when the outlook is less than acceptable. We have to keep trying to make some gain for our city whenever possible. I propose this amendment to the council.