A budget amendment from the Isle of Wight Council’s Liberal Democrat group once again aims to protect and improve vital services for vulnerable adults and children, boost local entrepreneurial spirit and back environmental initiatives.
The Council – which is led by the Conservatives – will meet tonight (Wednesday) to discuss the 2020/21 budget.
Lib Dem group leader, Cllr Andrew Garratt, says:
“Despite his big election victory, Boris Johnson’s government has failed to deliver an ‘Island Deal’ and so, once again, the Isle of Wight Council is forced to make massive cuts in services.
“The Lib Dem budget amendment again shows there is a better approach than the one being taken by the Conservative administration.
“Our plans are sound. They are paid for by redirecting £1.5 million that the Conservative leadership would put into the ‘Transformation Reserve’.
“Instead we would invest an extra £700,000 in adult social care and £200,000 in children’s services. We would stop proposed cuts to beach cleaning and to community libraries. We would provide a free 30-minute parking trial in Newport High Street, and set up a £100,000 Enterprise Fund to back local entrepreneurs.
“Last year, councillors voted cross-party to declare a climate emergency. We would back the Council’s plans with a £250,000 fund to ensure that urgent action isn’t held up for lack of money
Article continues below this advertisement “Above all these and other proposals are underpinned by the liberal principles set out in our party’s constitution: ‘to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.’”
The Lib Dem budget proposals are set out below.
Investing in caring services: Adult Social Care and Children’s Services
- £700,000 for Adult Social Care
- £200,000 additional funding to Children’s Services for their work with voluntary services and on Early Help initiatives
Investing in communities
- £100,000 Community Public Realm Fund to support joint initiatives with town, parish and community councils – these councils are the closest to their communities; this fund will help them make improvements to public spaces that enhance community life
- £18,000 to reverse the proposed reduction in funding to Community Libraries, including £15,000 to reverse the cuts to the book fund
- £6,000 extra to support Community Libraries, which play an important part in community life for many people
- £16,000 to reverse the proposed reduction in beach cleaning frequency
- £20,000 for a Community Consultation Fund – too often we hear people say that the council hasn’t listened; this fund will help ensure the council is strengthens its community engagement and consultation culture
- £20,000 funding for data analytic capacity, with a priority for support to the community safety strategy – good statistical analysis improves decision making and priority setting
Boosting business and entrepreneurial culture
- £100,000 Enterprise Fund – to support entrepreneurs as they get their businesses under way. As the Isle of Wight draft local plan strategy notes: “The Island also benefits from an entrepreneurial culture with micro businesses (with five or fewer employees) accounting for 85% of local business.”
- £70,000 to trial free 30-minute short stay parking in Newport High Street
Tackling climate change
- £250,000 to establish Climate Emergency Initiatives Fund (including Active travel schemes) – this fund will help the Council deliver on its plans to respond to its cross-party declaration of a climate emergency
Once again, the lib dems, who were not voted in at the last election, because no one trusts them, are planning to spend more of hard working taxpayers money, with scant regard to the cost the working taxpayer.
that transformation reserve is there for one off project and change activity – this is an essential reserve that is drawn down at various periods and as such the monetary value fluctuates.
Without this reserve, requests by various groups and departments will go unfunded and as such will cost the taxpayer more.
This transformation reserves, primary function is to provide funding, so that interested groups can achieve the efficiency and cost savings in the longer term that they have identified.
examples would be – paying out for a new updated IT infrastructure, transforming education, customer services, social care case management, property transformation.
Interested groups apply via a business case and set out the savings to the islands taxpayer, if they are given the cash from the transformation reserve.
The lib dems are not mentioning the fact that they will then increase charges to the taxpayer, to refill the transformation reserve after they have depleted it, to pay for their “vote getting” policies, which are not realistic again.