Reading Liberal Democrats

Reading Council’s budget is clearly under immense pressure says Cllr Gareth Epps leader of the Liberal Democrat group.

There is a substantial cash shortfall, caused by a number of factors. Foremost among these are a mean Government grant increase of only 1.5%, substantially behind inflation rates when it was set never mind now; a shortsighted budget passed by Labour and Conservative Councillors in 2008, and economic pressures caused by fuel price rises and the global financial situation.

Liberal Democrats on the Council take very seriously the need to put frontline services first. We are putting Council budgets under much greater scrutiny than they have ever been subjected to before, and will be looking at any signs of waste to be tackled first in order to protect vital public services.

A key problem is the way Whitehall increasingly takes money away from areas like Reading. Not only is our increase in council grant way below inflation, but measures like the “Tenant Tax” – siphoning off some £6 million of rent paid by Reading’s own council tenants – are absolutely unacceptable. Next year’s settlement is due to be even worse. It is time the Council confronted central Government – we need to fight for a fair deal for Reading.

Part of the trouble is directly due to the election bribe served up by Labour, and backed by the Tories, of a 2008-09 budget which stripped back vital reserves to keep council tax increases unsustainably low. I hate to say ‘we told you so’, but on this occasion we did. Their shortsighted action has contributed, arguably, up to £4 million – more than half – of the shortfall the Council is facing today. It has also removed the cushion provided by cash balances, which are now at a minimum. The Council’s own financial officers reported that this situation was If – and we hope it doesn’t happen – employees lose their jobs as a result, they will not thank the Labour or Conservative Groups on the Council.

Thankfully, at that meeting, other parties accepted our proposal for reviews of areas such as fees and charges, to take care of the Council’s longer-term financial interests. We will continue that responsible approach going forward into this budget process, and hope that the other political groups will do too.