Residents First

Councils are strangled by EU red tape

Letter from Cllr Harry Phibbs to the Hammersmith and Fulham Chronicle

Dear Sir,
UKIP's gains in the  recent local elections were felt to be more to do with national issues - like immigration and the EU than local issues.

It has been widely reported that David Cameron proposes to renegotiate our membership of the European Union and then to hold an in/out referendum. Those who would like us to be a self governing nation opening up our global trading opportunities welcome this. A Conservative Government is needed to achieve this.

However there is some local relevance to our EU membership. EU red tape is making it harder for Hammersmith and Fulham Council to cut the Council Tax and improve services. The cross party Local Government Association says that "ridiculous EU procurement rules are making it harder for councils to save money by sharing services." The rules are "making it virtually impossible for councils to give preference to local suppliers" and "force those wishing to pool services with neighbouring local authorities into an unnecessarily lengthy and costly EU-wide tendering process."

The bureaucratic burden makes it unrealistic for small firms to pitch for contracts - meaning the Council has to pay more to its suppliers. There are also EU directives which cause delays and perverse outcomes in planning cases increasing the amount spent on lawyers. This is not just about saving money. It is also about local democracy. These should be decisions for the elected local councillors not matters imposed by European Commissioners.

At a recent Council meeting we passed a motion calling on the government: "To take the fight to Brussels on behalf of the residents of Hammersmith & Fulham to promote a re-write of the rules stifling public service innovation" and "To allow more freedom to award contracts to local suppliers, including relaxing rules that demand that procurement contracts to employee organisations or staff mutuals must be opened to providers across Europe."

I was disappointed that the Labour councillors voted against - given that their colleagues nationally in the LGA signed up to this cross party campaign.

Yours sincerely
Cllr Harry Phibbs
(Ravenscourt Park Ward. Conservative.)
Hammersmith Town Hall,
King Street,
W6 9JU.

Charing Cross Hospital changes will save lives

Letter from Cllr Harry Phibbs to the Hammersmith and Fulham Chronicle

Dear Sir,
I agree with Josephine Lundberg that many residents will be confused by the various claims and counter claims concerning Charing Cross Hospital. But I disagree with a pessimistic verdict. The revised proposals would not mean a "small enterprise." The threat that we faced last year to drastically downgrade the Charing Cross Hospital has been lifted.

The revised NHS proposals would mean at least 85% of patients at the hospital would continue to be treated there. However they would still allow for greater specialisation, which the NHS tells us would save 130 lives a year.

At the moment the mortality rate is much higher for patients admitted at weekends than week days - as they are more likely to see junior doctors rather than consultants. The reorganization of stroke care in London has produced dramatic improvements in life expectancy for stroke victims saving 200 lives in 2010/11 with an estimate that it will now be saving as many as 500 lives a year.

There has been a lot of misleading allegations about what is proposed for Charing Cross Hospital. I'm afraid the Labour MP Andrew Slaughter has been scaremongering in a way which is disgraceful even by his standards. There have also been false claims from the "Save our Hospitals" campaign, the GMB trade union and others.

Some have suggested that as the existing building will be demolished that the hospital will cease to exist. But it is a phased rebuilding. The existing tower block at the hospital is in poor condition. £90m has been agreed for a new state of the art hospital on the existing site. At no stage during the building process will the hospital close.

To say we will "lose the hospital" is like saying you would "lose your car" if you trade in a Skoda for a Rolls Royce. The Accident and Emergency Centre is being renamed the Urgent Care Centre. Anyone who arrives at the hospital with an accident or emergency 24 hours a day, seven days a week, will be cared for.
usually this will be in the hospital. If a decision is made that better specialist care could be provided elsewhere they will be taken by ambulance to where this is available.

Contrary to the claim that there are spending cuts the NHS in north-west London is getting £3.6 billion this year. That is £100 million more than last year. It is matter of providing the most effective care with the money available.

Yours sincerely
Cllr Harry Phibbs
(Ravenscourt Park Ward. Conservative.)
Hammersmith Town Hall,
King Street,
W6 9JU.

The Argentinians should also be grateful to Baroness Thatcher

Cllr Harry Phibbs writes

Among the many tributes to Baroness Thatcher was one from Lord Soley - who as Clive Soley was the Labour MP for Hammersmith during her time as Prime Minister.

Naturally enough Lord Soley included some criticisms. But he also made the interesting point that the Argentinians were among the beneficiaries of her decision to go to war over the Falklands.

"As a result of defeating General Galtieri, the dictatorship in Argentina fell," says Lord Soley. "It might be beneficial if the people of Argentina think about that. Although it might not have been the intention in the first instance, it was the outcome. It might be contentious to say this, but it also is my belief that that helped to bring about the end of the juntas in South America, which we all took for granted at that time. One after another they fell. One of the messages was that you need to stand up to dictators."

Her role in helping to defeat Communism in eastern and central Europe is often discussed. But Lord Soley highlights another way in which she championed the cause of freedom not just in Britain but around the world.

Law should be toughened on squatters

Cllr Harry Phibbs writes

I am pleased that squatters have now been evicted from the Askham Road Family Centre allowing building work to proceed on it becoming a specialist school for autistic children. However I share the frustration of residents that the legal process took so long.

This government brought in a long overdue reform to make squatting a criminal offence in England and Wales (it has been one in Scotland since 1865). Yet the reform has not been implemented in full. For no very clear reason it only applies to residential buildings. This means that squatting remains merely a civil offence when other buildings are targeted. Police and property owners still don’t have the law on their side when it comes to squatters in non-residential buildings. If this changed, removing squatters would be a far more rapid and straightforward process.

There is no justification for squatting - least of all when the victims are vulnerable children. The government should be commended for tightening the law. Now it should complete the job and make squatting a criminal offence for all types of property.
 

Clueless Cowan Puts Labour Short of £80 Million

By Cllr Peter Graham

The man who thinks he got Barack Obama elected was interviewed in last week’s Chronicle. Stephen Cowan unveiled a string of Labour spending commitments, but completely failed to explain how he would pay for them.

He did announce a U-turn on extra funding for the police, saying he would now simply “replicate the current administration’s financial commitment”. And his “unequivocal no” to selling expensive, council-owned street properties would guarantee a big rise in rents for council tenants.

The rest of the interview, however, was a lengthy shopping list.

“When we say we will do something, we will do it,” he claimed. Borough residents had best hope he never gets the chance...

 

COWAN’S SPENDING COMMITMENTS

1.       “scrap homecare charges”

We have been reluctant to follow Labour boroughs in charging, have frozen the homecare charge and still have one of the most generous schemes in London. If Cowan scrapped all charges from 2014, it would cost over £400,000 annually. Over the four years of the council term, the cumulative cost would be £1.7 million.

Annual cost:  £0.4 million

Total cost:  £1.7 million

 

2.       “revise parking prices”

Revisions can be upward, but it’s clear from the context that Cowan anticipates a reduction in revenue. We have frozen parking charges and are well below the London average. If Labour were to cut all parking charges by 10% in their first year, and freeze thereafter, the annual cost would be around £1.5 million. Over a term, that would cost £6 million.

Annual cost:  £1.5 million

Total cost:  £6 million

 

3.       “don’t need to penalise motorists with box junctions and cameras everywhere"

This isn’t a commitment to remove every box junction and camera, but it implies a significant proportion. Box junctions exist to stop congestion and revenue is used to make improvements. Nevertheless, assuming Labour removed two-thirds of box junctions (with any additional junctions being offset by the loss of cameras) that would create a shortfall of £4 million a year. The total over four years would be £12 million.

Annual cost:  £4 million

Total cost:  £12 million

 

4.       “fund the ward budgets”

There are no ward budgets at present, so this isn’t a straightforward calculation. However, it’s clear that the budgets are intended to involve discretionary, optional spending. The panels will have a choice about what to spend money on because they aren’t required to fund essential services.  Cowan says he will “provide money for it to happen” and says a ward might decide: “We want extra police, another youth club, cleaner streets”. It would be difficult for a ward to fund all three for less than £250,000. That produces an annual cost of £4 million for all wards and a total of £16 million over the term.

Annual cost:  £4 million

Total cost:  £16 million

 

5.       “reinvest in youth services”

The Youth and Community section of the Children’s Services budget includes children’s centres, but Cowan is already committed to reversing changes made there, so it is fair to take them together. Net spending is up significantly because central government grants have reduced. However, if Cowan’s plan is to restore peak 2010/11 gross expenditure levels, it would cost around £7 million a year.

Annual cost:  £7 million

Total cost:  £28 million

 

6.       “cut council tax”

We have cut tax, on average, by 3% each year. Cowan is on record saying he would cut it by much more. Although no-one believes him, let’s take this seriously for a moment and assume reductions by Labour of 4% a year. That produces an ongoing loss of around 2.1 million for every reduction. If Labour reduced tax by more than the Conservative average every year, that’s an annual loss of more than £8 million by the end of the term. The cumulative cost across the four years would be at least £20 million.

Annual cost:  £8 million

Total cost:  £20 million

These are just the spending commitments from his interview, as others have been given at Council meetings.

TOTAL COST

The Chronicle reports Cowan as thinking that all this can be paid for “by eradicating what he says is more than £20million in unnecessary costs”. The estimates above suggest an annual cost of £25 million, not £20 million. 

Cowan’s figures

Annual cost:  £20 million

 

Reasonable estimate

Annual cost:  £25 million

Total cost:  £84 million

So he is already some £5 million adrift each year. But where would that £20 million actually come from?

 

PAID FOR BY?

There are three policies in the Chronicle article that Cowan claims would save money. Helpfully, we know exactly how much he thinks two of the three will save, as he provided figures on his own blog in 2011.

 

1.       "cutting millions spent on glossy leaflets and consultants fees”

Ignoring the facts and looking exclusively at Cowan’s figures, he claims he will save “at least £1 million by getting rid of high paid consultants” and “at least £1.25 million by cutting the council’s press office, shutting down the three glossy council magazines and ending the council’s controversial propaganda budget”. That’s a purported annual total of £2.25 million.

Cowan’s figures

Annual saving:  £2.25 million

Total saving:  £9 million

 

2.       “far too many officials employed on huge salaries”

In the same post on his 2011 blog, he claimed he would save “at least £600,000 by cutting council directors, super tri-borough directors and assistant directors jobs”. Ignoring reality once again in favour of his figures, that provides an additional £0.6 million annually, and £2.4 million over the term.

Cowan’s figures

Annual saving:  £0.6 million

Total saving:  £2.4 million

 

3.       “Neighbourhood improvement panels will strip out costs”

This is a new claim, so it’s impossible to know what figure Cowan has in mind. However, given it involves creating an additional tier of decision-making for new, discretionary spending, it is very difficult to see how any costs would be removed. At best, officers would try to accommodate the extra workload without adding to overheads.

Annual saving:  £0 million

Total saving:  £0 million

 

LABOUR’S £80 MILLION BLACK HOLE

Having identified those dubious savings of around £3 million, Cowan has a £17 million annual shortfall on his own figures. That would mean borrowing £68 million and taking the Council’s debt back up to near where Labour left it. Judged against the estimates above, the annual shortfall would exceed £22 million. And because his savings aren’t, in reality, credible...

Labour would need to borrow at least £80 million over four years, redoubling the debt.

Amusingly enough, one of Cowan’s many pledges in the Chronicle was to “bring down debt”. The truth is that his Labour Group doesn’t have a clue.

“People will have to work out whether they trust us or not,” he says. That isn’t much of a struggle for anyone who remembers debt at £169 million and average Council Tax rises of 7.7 % each year the last time he was in power.

“Importantly, when we say we will do something, we will do it and when we can’t, we will admit we can’t.”

My advice, Stephen? Fess up now.

 

 

The Legacy of Baroness Thatcher: 1925-2013

The Heritage Foundation in the United States have made a video which is a fitting tribute to Baroness Thatcher

 

Specialisation will save lives

Cllr Andrew Brown's speech at the Council meeting on Tuesday evening

My background is in medicine and healthcare and because of this I was determined to speak in tonight’s debate. I firstly want to provide some context to the issue and explain why the council’s position on this is the only sensible way to ensure the best provision of healthcare for Hammersmith & Fulham residents both in the borough and the wider area.

I live in Hammersmith & Fulham because of Charing Cross hospital and its links with Imperial College, where I studied medicine. I moved to the borough eleven years ago because Charing Cross was the main undergraduate teaching campus. I have trained in all of North West London’s hospitals, including Charing Cross, Chelsea & Westminster, St Mary’s, the Hammersmith, Central Middlesex, West Middlesex, Northwick Park and Hillingdon. I have also studied medical management at Imperial’s business school. I am passionate about the provision of healthcare, and if I believed that this proposal was against the interests of local residents I would not support it.

I am proud of the NHS and what it stands for. But what I will not do however is bury my head in the sand and suggest that it requires no reform. That is irresponsible for the NHS itself and most importantly for patients. The terrible cases revealed by the Francis Report in Staffordshire reflect this. We are not talking tonight about pensions or parks or even council tax. Very important topics, but not as important as peoples’ lives. Playing politics with this is unacceptable as is opposing any proposals to improve the NHS to protect vested interests or for partisan reasons.

Labour told to stop playing politics with Charing Cross Hospital

Cllr Marcus Ginn spoke last night at a Council meeting on the future of Charing Cross Hospital. These were the key points he made:

1. Throughout this process we have sought to protect the health needs of our residents – which is my job in local government

2. I would like to thank members of the public and of the party opposite, for joining with us last year to show the NHS how important our local health services are to residents

3. We fought tough and principled public campaign,

a. Communicated widely and continue to do that –duty

b. Commissioned an independent assessment of the NHS’s plans which we considered

4. Many in this room continue to campaign against any change

5. But sometimes doing the right thing means a change of approach. We chose to negotiate and to listen. To H&F GPs who backed the plans unanimously and to the 1,300 local health and social care users who are members of The LINK.

6. Hammersmith Hospital will continue to be a leading specialist cardiac hospital, serving 90% of patients

a. A&E will be replaced with new department which receives 70% of patients,

b. A&E small part of hospital and future never in doubt

7. Different at Charing Cross though - a few months ago I feared that the reconfiguration plans would lead to its eventual closure. But £90 million hospital secure for generations to come.

8. No, Charing Cross won’t be the same hospital. No, it won’t be the same size.

a. But change was inevitable with such strong clinical support for a move to fewer, better staffed and supported acute hospitals

b. Highly unlikely that Charing Cross would be chosen as an acute hospital compared to the newer Chelsea & Westminster

c. Negotiated the best possible outcome for Charing Cross.

d. A new, alternative and no less vital role

9. Ealing have increased the likelihood of their hospital being downgraded to a tiny local facility – something that I was and am determined not to do here

So what have we achieved at Charing Cross

1. Much made of reduction in size of, but

a. New hospital will cover 40% of the current site, with height and
final size tbc

b. Up to 50% of current site is not used by patients

i. Social housing, pathology laboratories, the university, child care facilities

2. Acute services won’t disappear, but will be provided at neighbouring sites

a. Expanded emergency/acute facilities incl 64% capacity increase at C&W

b. 24/7 consultant cover and best care which will saves lives

c. Proven to save lives amongst heart attack and stroke victims

3. Guarantees from NHS re enhancements to the ambulance service – one of our concerns

4. 85% of H&F residents will continue to use it in the same way - despite loss of beds

5. Residents will receive new or enhanced services there

a. Expectant mothers will now receive care there

b. New mothers will now receive care there

c. Elderly and mental health patients will receive enhanced care there

6. And to those who have suggested either ignorantly or mischievously that the new Charing Cross ‘will be a glorified GP clinic’:

a. Cancer patients don’t receive chemotherapy in a GP clinic

b. Patients don’t receive elective surgery in a GP clinic

c. Renal patients don’t receive dialysis at a GP clinic

d. I have never heard of a consultant led, 4 story, £90m GP clinic

7. Patients will in future receive care for different conditions at different sites - better, specialist, consultant led care

8. Integrated care model at CX will be so innovative CX could become a ‘European centre of excellence’ for teaching new methods

Further Enhancements

1. Yes, some land will be sold by NHS why retain whole site if the hospital smaller

2. Council will ensure - through negotiation - that a lot less will be sold and a lot more will be used for hospital and community services

3. Supported housing on the Charing Cross site for elderly and disabled patients

4. A range of health providers

5. Local charities

A Choice for the Labour Party

1. Outright opposition to change or support the best deal possible for CX

2. This isn’t a political issue, it is a quality of care issue

3. Solidarity with the Socialist Worker Party, pandering to the agenda of the unions, burning candles and spreading a message of fear amongst residents won’t protect our hospitals

4. What will protect them is firm negotiation and an understanding of the facts

5. The party opposite can challenge our motives, challenge our negotiating and challenge our vision for a new Charing Cross. But the voters of H&F will know that you are playing politics with our health service, burying your heads and the sand, manipulating a community campaign for your own purposes and taking the easy option.

Mystic Andy has made so many false claims, why should we believe him on Charing Cross Hospital?

By Cllr Harry Phibbs

Andrew Slaughter, the Labour MP for Hammersmith, is busy trying to scare his constituents with the claim that Charing Cross Hospital is still to be closed. Mr Slaughter dismisses the new proposals, negotiated by the Council, for £90 million to be spent enhancing specialist care at the hospital. He also refuses to acknowledge that 24/7 emergency care will continue.

This has left some residents, confused by the claim and counter-claim, not knowing who to believe. 

What they might find reassuring is how many of Mr Slaughter's past statements have been disproved.

Here are some examples.

1. Sure Start Children's Centres.

On June 30 2011 Mr Slaughter said in his email missive to residents

The Council has virtually ended Sure Start provision in many parts of the borough with cuts to Children’s Centre funding that will close nine of them.

Earlier that year, on February 2nd, he told Parliament:

The actual cut in service will be more than 50%, with nine out of 15 centres closing, having their grants reduced from £475,000 to £19,000 - not enough to run a service. That is the truth about Sure Start on the ground at the moment.

On June 20 2011 he told Parliament the closure would happen the following month:

That is all very interesting, but from next month, nine Sure Start centres in Hammersmith and Fulham will lose more than 90% of their funding, and therefore will close.

The reality has been that the number of Children's Centres has increased from 15 to 16. They are listed here. The number of sessions has doubled since 2011 and they have more visitors than ever before. Perhaps if Mr Slaughter believes that these sessions are non-existent, that "nothing remains except the shell of the building", - as he told Parliament in yet another of his predictions - he should go along and visit.

Council leader Cllr Nick Botterill presents his first tax cutting budget

At Wednesday evening's Council meetings Cllr Nick Botterill presented his first budget since becoming Council leader with the following speech

It gives me the greatest pleasure to stand up here tonight and to move that this authority of Hammersmith & Fulham Council, will be proposing yet again a reduction in council tax for an unprecedented sixth year out of seven.

This is no mean feat and it certainly didn’t happen of its own accord. Quite simply we are unique in the country for having done this and speaking for our whole group I am immensely pleased that this has been achieved on our watch, here in Hammersmith & Fulham.

Quite often these days, other council leaders often come up to me and ask how they can replicate our record – and not all of them Conservative leaders by any means. We started in 2006 when there were few external pressures on finances.  There was in fact a boom, or as it turned out a”so-called” boom, and public money was literally being showered around all over with no thought as to where it was coming from nor to the consequences which would have to be faced when times changed, as they inevitably did sadly in the biggest bust of all time.

The legacy of the years of national misrule by people who thought that all you needed to run an economy was “neo-classical endogenous growth theory” and to hell with prudence, managerial competence, structural reform or sound finances, the legacy of this was to put this country in a very, very deep hole. Most of the gains of the Blair/Brown years proved illusory and disappeared as quickly as morning mist. As a result on whatever measure you care to take, we are as a country poorer, far, far poorer than we would have been if the lords of misrule had not had their chance to muck everything up.

The people out there, residents and taxpayers know this only too well and I’ll wager they will go on remembering it next year and the year after that and the year after and they will NOT forget it.

THAT was the changing background as a council we faced moving within a short period of time from an era of false plenty to being confronted with something which has been described as a “burning fiscal platform”.

So what do you do? What did we do in order to survive this implosion?

What you don’t do is look at your budgets and make a thousand salami slices, bits off here, bits off there and everywhere. What we did, what the responsible, sensible manager would do, is to consider everything in the same strategic way starting with why do we do it and then moving on to examine the structure. Can it be deconstructed? What are the component parts and what (if any) are the alternative ways it could be done? Can the service be co-produced? What are all the overheads and how can they be eliminated or reduced or improved upon?

I have to be candid, not everything we did as Council some years ago are we doing now. Nor will we be doing everything as now in the future. But should that really be a surprise? Like all organizations we have to respond to the shifts in demand and preference in order to remain on top and relevant. Entities which fail to do this perish and die.

But in no way does that mean that our core values have changed, or should change. We are standing for the same essential core values in 2013 as we did in 2006, including value for money in all we do, cleaner and greener, reducing crime & disorder and most importantly creating a borough of opportunity.

I will therefore ask council to hear after me from the three cabinet members with the biggest portfolio areas. These portfolios touch the lives and well being of many of our residents and provide services for some of the most vulnerable in society. I will ask cabinet members to say just how their portfolios are continuing to transform lives for the better and how solid the achievements have been notwithstanding all the financial headwinds.

And so let us move on to the taxation side of the equation. Because of course everything we spend or don’t spend, whether it is on administration, overhead or service delivery has an equal and opposite impact on the level of taxation which everybody has to pay.

Council Tax is for many people the biggest single annual payment they make. Over the period of our administration, when everyday costs have been rising inexorably and yet wages have stagnated or fallen in real terms, residents’ council tax, in this borough, in H&F, has not risen in real terms. It has not even merely fallen in real terms but has fallen in absolute terms back to the levels it was in the early part of the last decade. This madam mayor is an awesome achievement.

While each reduction has been a small step along the way, it is of course the dramatic, cumulative effects of reductions in council tax, which are most material. Collectively, something like ₤45 million has been returned to residents. What do we mean by returned to residents?

We mean money that would otherwise have been taken from them, we mean ₤45 million much of which ends up invested in our local economy supplying ₤45 million of additional demand to the local economy but without incurring all the frictional losses from having been taken as tax and spent by local government on their behalf i.e. the economy has had 100% of the benefit and not the reduced benefit which comes about from having been recycled on residents behalf.

As councillors, we are often asked on the doorsteps what precisely we have done to help our local economy. We can sometimes point to a couple of good things but nothing on the scale of the fact that we have returned this colossal sum of money to our hard pressed residents. Remember that when next we are asked to list what precisely we have done to help our local shops and businesses and remember no other council in the land has achieved this.

There is far more to cutting taxes than the nuts and bolts and dry concepts (such as fiscal stimulus), there is a moral case for cutting taxes as well. We should not be taking a penny more out of residents’ pockets than is absolutely necessary for the efficient running of the council.

It is also from this moral vantage point that we considered the case of Council Tax Benefit localization. The government has passed the money for Council Tax benefit to councils from April this year but there is also less overall money to go around.

While certain recipients of this benefit are protected by law, council’s have been left to determine their own allocation policies as best they see fit. Let’s bear in mind that Council Tax benefit goes to residents who are some of the poorest in the borough and it is a fair assumption that these are the people you might want to try to protect when seeking to devise a practicable policy. With this in mind, at some cost to the bottom line, this authority decided (as did our Triboro’ partners) that Council Tax Benefit would continue to be paid as before and we would not seek to pass on the reduction in funding from central government.

Contrast our approach with those of many London Labour councils. Notwithstanding the ditching of the socialist branding, the Labour party is supposed to believe in supporting the needs of the poorer people in society (or that was their aim when I last looked at their website).

If this is the case, then you would surely expect that Labour in power in local councils, would be all for trying to ensure that poorer members of society were protected from increased charges – after all they have had plenty to say nationally on this subject.

Imagine my surprise on reviewing the latest intentions of London councils to see that it is Labour councils which are leading the way in seeking to pass on the reduction in Council Tax benefit. Also the amounts involved have spiralled up far from the modest reduction of 10% from central government:

Brent – given it remains a byword for chaotic, unplanned municipal rule, no surprise that they propose 15% - 25% of Council Tax Benefit will be clawed back.

Hounslow – the putative Labour tax cutters with a common boundary with us – but with a band D almost £400 higher than ours - 10 to 20% of Council Tax will be clawed back depending on circumstances.

Ealing has calculated surprise, surprise that only half of the Council Tax to be clawed back from people previously in receipt of benefit will be collectable, so they have decided to claw back 20% across the board. 20% of their council tax which again is at levels much higher than ours.

In Enfield it is the same story with up to 35% to be clawed back.

Across London, it is Labour Council after Labour council which is seeking to extract these council tax monies from the poorest residents. These are not meaningless figures but literally hundreds of pounds of additional demands that will be landing on the doorsteps of people who are least able to pay.

By contrast here in Hammersmith & Fulham we have shown that we can both continue to cut tax for all and still absorb this additional government cost. I realize that the Labour opposition are not in power to demonstrate what you would do, but indulge me and answer me this. If we haven’t had to charge our poorer residents more this year and have reduced taxes for all, why have all these Labour councils made a
deliberate choice to increase taxes on the poorest? Answer me that if you can? If you can’t answer me now then be sure you are ready with your answers on the doorsteps.

The strong moral imperative to reduce taxes leads to actions which will continue to differentiate Conservative administrations from Labour administrations. While we seek to reduce burdens, Labour councils seem hell bent on increasing them. The hard pressed, aspiring voter can look at both examples and judge which model he or she has most empathy with.

Over the last few weeks I have been given much advice as to what strategies and lines the leader of the Opposition will take tonight.

If he is true to form he will make the following points:

• That it is only a 3% reduction in tax, £23 off a band D,
• that it has all been achieved by smoke and mirrors and by
• introducing a long list of stealth taxes, such as putting up charge like for bulky removals massively,
• that £70 m has been wasted on the town hall extension project,
• that there have been multiple unrecorded or unnoticed cuts to services, such as £120k less to CCTV on Council Estates,  many of which turn out when under scrutiny not to have been cuts at all,
• finally that multiple legal challenges to planning decisions has resulted in wasting more millions.
• Oh and by way if only the Conservatives had not done all the above, then council tax could (and by implication should) have been cut by far more. Just as Labour did NOT when last in office.

I know this because I looked at the past headlines from the leader of the opposition. If I were more cynical I could suggest that basically he dusts down the same speech to deliver each year.

However as each year follows the next and the reductions in tax continue, it is harder and harder to sustain even the feeble and generally inaccurate arguments which are made by the leader of the opposition.

Let’s looks at the issue of charges. It is true council’s make charges for various services and there can be a dilemma when a service is being restructured or re-provided as to just how it is to be paid for. What is simply NOT true is that we are profoundly shifting the burden from tax payers to charge payers. Our policy is and will remain, that charges will be set at levels appropriate to the costs involved and the locations in which we operate.

Take parking, that most emotive of areas and given they affect tens of thousands of residents the biggest block after council tax itself. Parking is often portrayed as the area where super profits are made. And yet when I was in opposition, this area of the council always yielded a big surplus, particularly after Labour hiked residents permits by I seem to remember 50% in one year – something we have never done and I can promise never will do while I am in charge.

In reality our parking charges compare very well with other congested, inner London boroughs. Very well if you take into account that there is a balance to be struck between the various, competing needs of residents, the needs of shops and the needs of the passing motorist all of whom expect something from parking policy. Then we strike that balance pretty well given the circumstances and you will notice there has been no rise in parking charges this year.

So there we have laid out our stall:

We are in straitened times but notwithstanding this we have managed yet again to reduce the burden we place on our residents.

We have done this while continuing to provide excellent services – services which all the independent polling tells us are now perceived by residents as being better year on year.

We have been guided by our principles (stitched into our DNA) that we will continue not only to deliver top quality services but also in the most efficient ways possible.

We are on the side of the hard pressed, coping residents, the struggling parents, the aspiring students, the vulnerable citizens, the frail elderly and the businesses trying to make a living.

We have:

• reduced taxes
• raised the quality of services, 
• reduced debts and
• balanced the budget.

And Madam Mayor I have the utmost pleasure in presenting this budget to council.