Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Death by a hundred cuts - how Labour slashes local services

One oft he areas it seems that Labour is hoping to make a dividing line withthe Tories is the classic "Tory cuts". In an article posted by Sir Jeremy Beecham, Leader of the LGA Labour Group on LabourList he calls on Labour councillors and activists to let them know about Tory and Lib Dem cuts.

You'll note that he does not mention Labour cuts because as we all know the Labour Party never cut anything right? Wrong. Take a look at the budgets over the last few years in the London Borough of Greenwich for proof.

Only just before Christmas there was outrage from the local Unison members that the council was to cut funding for Childrens Services. This was a matter of weeks after the Baby P incident. Now there are school closures in the name of "reconfiguration".

Just thought I'd point this out. If anyone else living in a Labour controlled area is experiencing service cuts do add them in the comments.

4 comments:

Obnoxio The Clown said...

You might want to read this to see how council budgets are drawn up and why things get cut.

My head nearly exploded at the cynical cuntishness of it all.

Matthew Cain said...

Of course a school closure doesn't have to equal a service cut.

You can close a school because it's too small to run efficiently and keep the overall budget the same, leading to an increase in funding to the remaining schools.

I don't know whether this has happened in Greenwich - but the point still stands.

Anonymous said...

Checkout Wirral Council a Lab/Lib mess,closing libraries,youth centre's and more,they are closing these places as they lost loads of money in the Iceland banks,screw the people,we look after ourselves as it is our pension money.

The Welsh Jacobite said...

"You can close a school because it's too small to run efficiently"

A common misapprehension. Local government is obsessed with these "economies of scale", but the savings are illusory. They may look like savings on the balance sheet, but in real life they push up costs. So although the budget may remain the same you are getting less bang for your buck, which means a cut in services unless you put up the Council Tax.