Leicester City Council Proposes Yet More Devastating Cuts to Public Services. We say Build a Movement Against Austerity

We all know the story. Tories are cutting services in the name of austerity. Labour Councils are meekly carrying them out, claiming (incorrectly) that there is nothing they can do. But what is galling is that, three years on since Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, Leicester’s Labour council continues to justify government cut backs as improvements. Shockingly, cuts to assisted living for vulnerable individuals are described by the Council as a “better way of supporting people” which “will also save money.”

In recent years Labour-led Councils have repeated the tired mantra that if the Tory government keep cutting their funding, then the only responsible thing for them to do is to cut services in line with their ever-diminishing revenue streams. This is not a socialist strategy for improving the lives of working-class people.

A socialist strategy would start from the position of arguing that the Tory cuts are wrong – which some Labour councillors have done – and then use this injustice as a means of launching a powerful public campaign to demand that our services are funded properly.

To show willingness to fight, Labour Councils could, in the first instance, set legal “no cuts” budgets which Leicester City Council can do by actively freeing up money that has been banked for other purposes (how this might be done in Leicester has been outlined by UNISON). http://www.cabinet.leicester.gov.uk:8071/documents/s82534/No%20Cuts%20Budget%20for%20City%20prepared%20for%20Unison.pdf

The Council could also look into borrowing additional funds to enable them to prevent all service cuts and use this show of determination to actively win the public to their side against the government whose cuts are destroying our lives. If they did this our Labour Council would in effect be doing what the French yellow vest protestors have already succeeded in doing, showing that if you unite and fight you can win.

But like many other Blairite dominated Labour Councils this is not what Leicester’s Labour Council are doing. Instead rather than strive to promote a socialist response to Tory cuts they are simply trying to manage the Tories devastating cuts without attempting to organise a fightback.

This strategy of capitulation meant that in July this year the Council decided they were going to cut funding for an important service known as the Independent Living Support (ILS) Sheltered Support Service. This service is aimed at supporting vulnerable people “living in 31 non-council sheltered housing schemes” who “in most cases, do not meet the council’s threshold for care and support.” Hence the Council, in their so-called consultation document, explained:

“The ILS Sheltered Support Service is not something that we are required to fund by law. We propose to end the funding and we would like your views on that.

“We would also like to hear your ideas for how the support might continue without our funding.”

Then in the same week as the public consultation on this proposed cut came to an end, in mid-October, the Council launched a new related consultation on the future of their ILS “Supported Housing Service.” Again, the Council observes that the “supported housing support service is not something that we are required to fund by law.” They explain that the service is currently delivered by two organisations, Creative Support and Norton Housing and Support, with the total cost coming at £372,000 each year. The Council state:

“For this money, the organisations give residents information about managing a tenancy, their money and other aspects of their daily living. Residents can receive up to five hours of support each week. This might include helping them to find activities that help to keep them happy and healthy. The service supports up to 82 tenants across 14 schemes in the city.”

Instead of having a dedicated service to help the vulnerable the Council apparently have a way of cutting a service, saving money, while providing better care for all concerned. They apparently want to create “a new service called a community living network” although they don’t say how much money will be provided to staff such a service, yet astoundingly add: “We believe this would be a better way of supporting people and it will also save money.”

In line with such defeatist and disingenuous nonsense about saving money in order “to improve the way we support people” the Council’s latest proposed cuts involve cutting 15 experienced teachers from our cities 14 remaining Children’s Centres (“Leicester council reveals why 15 teachers could be made redundant,” Leicester Mercury, December 11).

But thankfully, in this instance trade unionists in Leicester are saying enough is enough, and Joseph Wyglendacz, the Secretary of the local branch of the National Education Union “has slammed the funding change and called on the council to fight back.” As reported in the Mercury, Wyglendacz said:

“The redundancies would take effect from April next year, leaving the children’s centres with no qualified teachers, midway through the school year, to deliver the support programmes currently provided to some of the most vulnerable children in the city.

“A report written earlier this year concludes that children’s centre teachers are uniquely placed to provide early identification, intervention and tracking of vulnerable children.

“Leicester City Council needs to stop meekly administering these cuts and start fighting them.

“Once we lose these services it will be very difficult to ever replace the expertise that will have been lost and, as usual, it will be the most vulnerable in society that suffer.”

Quite right. Leicester’s Labour Council must take note, they should immediately stop meekly administering these cuts and all the other cuts they are making to our public services and start fighting back by refusing to do the Tories bidding for them!

This is certainly the approach advocated by the Socialist Party, which is why our members will be out on the streets this weekend campaigning against these proposed cuts to Leicester children’s centres, with the positive message that the Council should join with us in leading a fight-back against this shambolic Tory government!