Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats

Tories have lost overall control of Oxfordshire County Council after 8 years, at the elections held last Thursday 2nd May. Liberal Democrats have gained 1 seat overall taking the number of Lib Dems on the council from 10 up to 11. The County Council has reduced the number of seats from 74 to 63 after boundary changes, however, Liberal Democrats have held on to all of their Liberal Democrat councillors who were re-standing and gained 3 new ones.

Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats were pleased to hear that at the last Cabinet meeting on 16th April, the Cabinet had received £3.55M additional funding for Highways and Transport. At the last County Council meeting on 2nd April, the Conservative ruling group refused to support a Liberal Democrat motion calling on the Cabinet to require contractors to meet their obligation on highways repairs and so ensure our roads are fit for the public to travel on . The Conservatives obviously think that everything is fine across the county, but most Oxfordshire residents know just how bad the roads really are.

WORKING WITH OUR COMMUNITIES

LIBERAL DEMOCRATS in Oxfordshire will continue to work hard to spend scarce resources wisely and make Oxfordshire a better place for everyone.

We will strive to:

I am pleased to see that at last there has been a review of the scrutiny arrangements for this council which have really not been working for a number of years. In the beginning, when scrutiny committees were first set up and there were more officers undertaking the support role, there were a number of in-depth reviews which helped to look at ways in which this council was working. I remember one I took part in on special needs, and I know Cllr. Turner was involved in one on young carers, and there was a way in which councillors could feel involved as backbenchers in the Cabinet system. However, since then, there has been much re-organisation, staff changes and not least much down-sizing of support work from democratic services and that system was unsustainable in the current world of cuts to public services.

Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats have welcomed yesterday's Cabinet decision to review the council's scrutiny arrangements in May 2013 post the County Council elections. Since the Conservatives took control of the council 8 years ago and introduced their own scrutiny arrangements with chairs from the ruling group holding all the key positions, Liberal Democrats have not been convinced that the Cabinet were being held to account.

More than 4,460 people were on an apprenticeship last year in Oxfordshire thanks to the Liberal Democrats, final figures reveal. That is a huge increase of 76% compared to the last year of Labour's government.

These figures are a big boost for apprenticeships and young people in Oxfordshire which comes as National Apprenticeship Week is underway, which aims to raise awareness and celebrate the successes of the apprenticeship scheme.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has closed the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference in Brighton by calling on members to spread the message of the Party's commitment in Government to deliver a stronger economy and a fairer society.

In his keynote Leader's speech, Nick paid tribute to the work of the Party in winning the Eastleigh by-election, beating the Conservatives into third place and squeezing Labour while campaigning on the Lib Dem record of delivering in Government.

I welcome the Local Enterprise Partnership and all the opportunities this will bring to Oxfordshire. I have read through the Oxford Economic Growth strategy and accept the fact that a lot of this impacts on Oxfordshire! There is absolutely no doubt that we have to look at the whole county and as we know, travelling around our county can be a real challenge for many of us living outside the city. It is absolutely key that securing funding to help with our infrastructure, in particular our highways network is going to be key to our economic growth. Sitting in queues on the A34 is not helping our prosperity and we know that this has to be addressed.

At today's Cabinet meeting at County Hall, the ruling Tories did a U-turn on their full Council budget which was agreed last week. Liberal Democrats had put forward an amendment to keep the Councillor Community Budget for another year at a cost of £0.630m, but all their amendments had been voted down. The Leader also put forward a one-off funding request to develop a joint-ticketing scheme across Oxfordshire, again, something that Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for.