Budget article for Evening Post

Article I prepared for the South Wales Evening Post (Wales’ most read newspaper) and which was published yesterday, the day of Swansea Council Budget Meeting:

The way in which decisions have been made over the past six years has made the effects of the current economic downturn even worse for Swansea. Swansea Council has failed to invest to attract new private sector jobs, no significant retail development has taken place in the City for well over two decades, our roads are crumbling and chocked with traffic. According to the Centre for Cities Report, Swansea relies on the public sector for over 38% of its jobs and could face around 2,300 job losses on current predictions for public spending.

This Budget is not a fit response to the crisis we are now facing. It cannot be right to slash spending on schools whilst the Welsh Assembly Government has actually INCREASED funding to Swansea Council by 1.9%. Add to this the requirement on the schools to fund a 2.3% teacher pay increase and inflation now running at 3.5%, then the real losers from this Budget are our school kids.

Swansea Conservatives would immediately implement a recruitment freeze across the Council - something which my Deputy Councillor Paxton Hood-Williams has been calling for since 2004 and reduce spend on "back office" functions like project managers (where we currently spend nearly £400,000 per year), charge Councillors and Council staff to park at County Hall and other Council buildings, slash the "PR" budget for the Council and get rid of the "Leader" propaganda sheet and freeze the pay of senior staff.

There will also have to be some tough decisions such as reducing non-recycling waste collections to fortnightly to cut the amount of waste we currently throw into landfills and which costs local residents as the Council has to pay a "landfill tax". Other decisions which may not be popular, like turning off street lights in the dead of night could save the taxpayer another £500,000 a year, but this coalition is only proposing to save £100,000 a year.

I would also want to see the amount of perks to councillors slashed by cutting the bonus of £8,000 per year to all the vice-chairs of committees and I would abolish the positions of Presiding and Deputy Presiding Officers and go back to having the Lord Mayor chairing Council Meetings.

The previous Chief Executive challenged Councillors to find about 8% of savings a year between 2004 and 2008. This was never done. In short, there are plenty of ways in which this Council can save money which does not involve slashing spending on schools – we currently have over £350 million a year to divide up and it’s all a question of priorities. My charge is that the current coalition running the Council has the wrong priorities and no moral compass to guide them through these difficult economic circumstances.