Mid-Devon Lib Dems Oppose Cuts to Street Cleaning

9.40.39am GMT Wed 3rd Dec 2008

Cllr David Nation, leader of the Council's Liberal Democrat Opposition Group, told Council Leaders that his Group would not support a reduction in services to local communities whilst funding was being increased on staffing.

The Council heard from its finance officers a few weeks ago that there was a deficit of £560,000 in the draft budget for 2009/10. Yesterday they were told that this had reduced to about £400,000. A paper was tabled outlining suggestions from meetings of the Council's Policy Development Groups last week. These included reduced street sweeping, closure of public toilets and a reduced Grants budget. Cllr Nation complained that information such as this was not being circulated to all councillors and that hampered their ability to contribute usefully to the budget debate. He said "We will not support a reduction in street sweeping, closure of toilets and reduction in Grant funding when staff costs are soaring. Not long ago the Executive enthusiastically supported the findings of the Scrutiny Committee urging increased support for voluntary organisations but you seem to have forgotten that and are now considering a reduction in their budget."

Cllr Nation said "We are not being given details of how staff numbers have changed year on year and I have written to the Leader and Chief Executive asking whether the embargo on recruitment that was put in place a couple of years ago when we were first in serious financial trouble, still exists."

He was told that demanding tests are applied before the Management Team agrees to recruit but Cllr Nation drew attention to the fact that there is no councillor involvement in that process. The meeting was told that it was not known how many posts were currently being advertised. Cllr Nation urged the Executive to impose an immediate embargo on recruitment unless this was approved by the Chief Executive and Council Leader.

The suggestion was not taken up by the Executive and afterwards Cllr Nation expressed dismay that the Executive did not seem to have effective control of the Council.