Oxfordshire Liberal Democrats

The Lib Dem Alternative Budget

Last year we produced a full budget, due to the criticisms of the ruling group dismissing our amendments the previous year, despite the fact that we acted on the advice which was given to us at the time. Interestingly, a number of things which we put in our budget last year have been picked up by the Cabinet this year, so it must mean we did some things right. Maybe the real reason my group is encouraged to put forward a full budget again is to enable our good ideas to be taken forward for next year, so we can but hope.

So here we go again, producing reams of paper which will all end up in the recycling box - at least that will help improve our recycling targets if nothing else.

I would like to thank Sue Scane and her team, and in particular her colleague, Catherine, who spent many hours with us preparing this budget and thus ensuring we have a robust proposal to put before you today. I would also like to express my gratitude to both Stephanie and Cllr Alan Armitage for the hard work they have put into this on our behalf.

The government settlement as expected, was not good, although it was 2% more than last years. However, what is frustrating to all of us in Oxfordshire, is the way the grant formula is worked out which means that many grants which benefit councils in the north actually hamper those of us in the South East. However, despite this poor settlement, all our Conservative MP's in Oxfordshire, including David Cameron, Tony Baldry and Ed Vaizey all abstained from the vote. It was only Evan Harris, who along with all other Liberal Democrat MPs voted against it, and indeed Andrew Smith, as one might expect, voted for it.

I must also begin by saying that Liberal Democrats still stand by the fact that this is an unfair system, which does not work, it penalises those who are elderly or on low incomes, and until there is total reform, we will continue to battle on.

So, we have before us four budget proposals for discussion today, the one that will be agreed, and the other three which will not be agreed, and we will spend 5 good hours of the day debating what we would all wish for, but knowing that we will have to settle for less. But I am offering this Council today, a real alternative budget, a budget which will really make a difference to the people of Oxfordshire and takes into account forward planning for our services in the future. For just a small increase of just 7 and a half pence a week for an average Band D house (amounting to just £3.93 a year), we could see some real improvements.

The Cabinet's budget, like lasts year, has everything that the administration wishes to do over the next four years. But with their low tax, there will be very little real choice, especially for the elderly and the vulnerable. As for value for money - well at what cost?

I shall therefore present to you, our Opposition budget, our alternative budget which will have a very small council tax rise of 4.25%, but this will deliver much more value for money.

Our key points are:

• £3.4 million extra for adult social care including investment in new ways to support people living at home, such as a wellcheck service for elderly people, and a supported employment service for adults with mental health problems (the only group to invest in mental health services). This is more than the Cabinet - over £600,000 more and in future years, our budget for social care outstrips those of the other groups substantially - in 2009/10 we have £1m more in adult social care than Labour, over £2m more than the Tories, and £3m more than the Greens; this rises to £3m more than Labour in 2010/11 and continues the same trend (with both Tories and Greens falling even further behind). So our investment in services is long term and well planned for the future.

• £1.45m more for vulnerable children and their families. This includes more youth workers, which is similar to what we put in last year, plus £0.5m to refurbish youth centres not owned by the County Council (refurbishing Council-owned centres are in our capital programme as well) and more support from social workers. This is more than all other groups - £700K more than the Tories, £400K more than Labour and £800K more than the Greens.

• £1.5m extra for pavement, cyclepath and road maintenance. There is an additional £200K extra for pedestrian crossings and other safety schemes, £150K to promote 20mph speed zones, £50K for processing rights of way applications and £300K for repairs to the Thames Towpath. There is also £300K to reinstate weed spraying - a budget that was totally cut by the Tories last year - and £160K for flood alleviation measures. In total, we have a £4m increase in the environmental budget - more than all other groups by some margin: £2.4m more than the Tories, £2.7m more than Labour and £1.6m more than the Greens. Indeed, if more investment had been made in highways maintenance, especially the ditch and gully clearance which we put in last year similarly, maybe some areas may have been spared the worst of the flooding. Who knows? But I expect there will be little chance of investing this money now. Equally, I expect we shall be putting up with even more repairs to our pavements and highways as this continues to be underfunded year on year so the problems worsen.

• Extra for bus subsidies (included in total for environment above) - Cabinet and the Greens have nothing;

• Additional money for flood alleviation measures (included in total for environment above) - £160K.

• In Abingdon, £50,000 in 2009/10 for pump priming a lottery bid for Abingdon Museum. In Oxford, £30,000 for similar pump priming for the Museum of Modern Art. Pump priming for a communities libraries project, which would assist community groups wishing to set up their own "library". All initiatives presented here by the Opposition.

• Community Safety - our budget has £194K extra for this directorate -and we are not accepting all the cuts in the Fire Service (by not deleting fire services emergency cover).

These are funded from some extra savings that we propose:

• We do not propose to fund the same level of investment in ICT

• From 2009/10, reintroducing parking charges for evenings and Sundays in Oxford and increasing penalty charges

• Putting up charges for skips and scaffolding on the highway

• Not employing a third Assistant Chief Executive

In our Capital programme, we have invested in future years for our youth centres, including Grove and Wheatley. Extra money for post SEN. In our libraries, especially in future years to ensure these will come on stream in time for further growth planned in Didcot, Grove and Witney, so we are looking ahead on this. Equally with our day centres namely for example in Abingdon and in Wantage, where we are trying to plan for future needs.

Obviously, this is an overview, just a flavour of what we have in our papers before you, and I shall allow my colleagues to present their speciality areas under their shadow portfolios.

But our message is clear -

We are putting people first by providing Oxfordshire residents with a real alternative to this administration. We have a well prepared budget, despite the fact that much of the information, particularly around the capital budget, was late in coming forward, but we have taken into account everything that people have told us that they want.

• More spending on care for the frail, elderly and other vulnerable adults, including investing in new ways to support people to live safely and comfortably at home

• More spending on children, including more investment in youth services

• More spending on road, pavement and cycling maintenance,

• and all this coming from a small increase to the Council Tax of 7½p a week.

• I couldn't find anything which cost 7p to hold up today - perhaps it could be a quarter of a tin of baked beans depending on where you buy it and which brand you buy - but the key message here today is that if you vote for our Liberal Democrat budget, you will have a real budget which invests in the people of Oxfordshire - we are putting people first.

• Please consider supporting our budget today and we can start seeing some real improvements on the way. Our budget is the only realistic budget if we want to make a difference in the future. We have planned ahead and this is a fully costed proposal to show this.