If you follow our Twitter feed, you will’ve seen that the proposed Budget Review was voted through at the full council meeting last night.
On his fifth anniversary as Leader of the council, David Pugh presented his Budget Review proposal.
When asked for a seconder there was an unusual pause (normally lots of hands go straight up), until Cllr Dave Stewart finally put up his hand. Asked by the chair, Cllr Susan Scoccia, whether he’d like to say anything about the motion, he declined the offer.
“This is a do less council”
Cllr Welsford responded to Cllr Pugh’s speech by saying that it “sounded more like party political broadcast.” He accused the leader of not understanding the global economic crisis and its impact on the local economy and added that he couldn’t vote for the paper as he didn’t agree with the priorities. “This is a do less council.” he said.
Hands off my housekeeping
Cllr Churchman seemed unimpressed with the proposal too, saying, “I wouldn’t give this council my housekeeping budget to look after.”
Cllr Mazillius thanked all the staff who had assisted in helping the administration deliver “a most excellent budget last year” and jumped to the defence of Cllr Pugh’s knowledge of economics.
Cllr Barry said the proposal came across as the Tory Manifesto and wouldn’t be supporting it.
“Tory sweeteners”
Cllr Lumley, opened with, “It was a pleasure to hear Cllr Pugh ‘attempt’ to give an economics lesson.”
He said he felt the council were being dishonest with the electorate in relation to underspends. Adding that a cursory examination of the accounts would show that the underspend was well over £8m not £2.3m as declared.
In the scheme of things, that was a good thing, he said, but only if they weren’t making staff redundant or getting rid of essential services as the council had done over the last couple of years.
Cllr Lumley said the budget proposal was “a shopping list of early Tory sweeteners come February next year”.
“Be honest!”
Cllr Stephens called for honesty from the Conservatives. He said, “Cllr Pugh seems to be auditor in chief of this council rather than leader of council when it comes to trying to ridicule and upset the apple cart when it comes to alternative budgets”.
Unhappy with Cllr Pugh’s attack on the previous alternative budgets, Cllr Stephens walked out of the chamber during the leader’s summing up when told by the chair he could not respond to comments made by Cllr Pugh about him.
Should be more proactive in helping young people
Cllr Fuller joined the list of those unable to support budget proposal. He said they council should be more proactive in helping young people.
He thought the Destination Management Organisation was great, but questioned why they’d cut the Tourist Information Centres, public toilets etc.
He said he couldn’t support the Budget Review because it was an add on from last year. “Thousands out there don’t support it also.” he said.
Majority vote in favour
Cllr Pugh responded to the points made by other councillors and summed up by saying that he took comfort from the council receiving a glowing endorsement from Audit Commission.
The vote was taken and 22 councillors (all Conservative) voted in favour with the motion. Twelve councillors, Lib Dem, Labour and Independent all voted against the motion.
Image: Martin Bowling under CC BY 2.0
