At the last full council meeting, the autumn Budget Review was discussed, debated, amended (several times) and voted upon.
Council leader, David Pugh, presented the Budget Review, highlighting underspends, predicted overspends and outlining the recommendations that were on the table.
The councillors were asked to consider the following recommendations …
(i) That Council agrees those areas identified in paragraph 40 of the report (see report embedded below for your convenience) that should be worked up for consideration in the budget decisions in February 2012 and consult with residents / stakeholders as appropriate and to develop relevant Equality Impact Assessments.
OR
(ii) That Council agrees to a different list of areas that should be worked up for consideration in the budget decisions in February 2012 and consult with residents / stakeholders as appropriate and to develop relevant Equality Impact Assessments.
AND
(iii) That Council agrees that in respect of the disposal to the Waterside Community Trust that provision be made for £50,000 within the Council’s capital programme, a one-off start up grant of £16,061 be met from general fund balances and that the reduction of income of £25,600 from 2012/13 be dealt with as part of the budget strategy for 2012/13.
Cllr Pugh recommended option (i) and option (iii). What followed Cllr Pugh’s speech was a number of amendments to the recommendations.
Labour amendment to defer decision
The first came from Cllr Geoff Lumley. Speaking with a ‘heavy heart’, he suggested an amendment with a wider recommendation. He spoke of what he referred to as attacks on the low paid staff, and asked whether the cuts were really necessary given the fact that this time last year a predicted overspend of £6.3m actually turned out to be an underspend of £800,000.
He suggested that the decision on the budget review be deferred until after the second quarter to ensure an accurate reflection of the council’s position.
As mentioned in his letter to the editor yesterday, Cllr Lumley then went on to suggest that “nice pot of money” was being held for just before elections.
This was met with enthusiastic applause from the public gallery.
“We have a duty to people of Island”
Cllr Reg Barry then went on to suggest an amendment to Cllr Lumley’s amendment to Cllr Pugh’s recommendation. He recommended that option (ii) and (iii) be adopted with the Labour amendment.
After some further discussions amongst the councillors, Cllr Pugh spoke again, advising members that they would not be making decisions on any specific cuts that evening, but simply giving the go ahead for officers to get prepared. He rejected the amendments put before the council.
Cllr Bacon invited the recommendation be changed to (ii) and (iii) with recommendation (ii) giving more flexibility.
Cllr Howe made a general comment that the councillors needed to make sure they talked about savings. “Residents of the Island need services and amenities,” he said, going on to remind the council that they had a “duty to the people of Island to provide necessary services.”
The vote for the Labour amendment to Cllr Pugh’s recommendation received seven votes in favour, 23 against and five abstaining.
Time to vote
The discussion seemed to go on and on, after some time, Cllr Bacon commented that “We’re starting to enter silly time now, let’s get on with it.”
Next up was the vote for Cllr Barry’s amendment. This received nine votes in favour, 23 against and three abstentions.
Cllr Lumley seemed to be exasperated by the discussion too, saying that the debate that had taken place had, “made me want to shoot myself.”
Vote on original recommendation
Cllr Pugh recommended a change to the wording of option (i) to include, “This list of areas for consideration is not exhaustive and other areas may also be worked up” and that votes be taken seperately on each option.
The vote for option (i) with amendment as above received 28 votes in favour, six against and one abstention.
The vote for (iii) – disposal of Waterside Pool to disposal to the Waterside Community Trust – received 35 votes in favour.
The budget review paper is embedded below for your convenience
