Bold budget to invest in the future

CUTTING allowances... to show councillors are doing their bit, says Oldham council leader Jim McMahon

CHANGES worth more than £2million to Oldham Council’s budget will pave the way for an authority which gives power back to the people.

Cabinet members gave their backing to Labour’s emergency budget plans this week, redirecting funds to its own priorities after snatching control from the Lib-Dem/Conservative coalition in the May elections.

Council leader Jim McMahon said: “I hope people will see it’s a budget for fairness and progress and investing in the future.”

Calling it a “bold first statement” for the new administration, Labour says it is showing financial prudence by staying within the existing budget at no extra cost to council taxpayers. The proposals bring free parking for disabled drivers, extra support for school leavers and more power to district partnerships.

And the revisions, worth just over £2million over two years, will kick-start transformation into a co-operative council which promises a bigger say for residents, the community and voluntary groups into how money is spent and how services are delivered.

Councillor McMahon said an emergency budget, following a budget already introduced by the previous administration, could only ever have a minimal effect.

“Where staff have already been made redundant or services stopped, it would be uneconomical to bring them back,” he said, with the exception being the reopening of Limecroft care home.

He said the council would now work towards paying its staff a decent living wage, saying: “It’s immoral to pay people less than it costs to live.”

And he said action to claw back cash to help fund the changes — including cutting councillors’ allowances and benefits by £65,000 this financial year and £107,000 next year, as well as cutting their support services — would show councillors were “doing their bit.”

Switching of funds focusses chiefly on investment in neighbourhoods in a bid to give power back to new district offices which are closer to residents and their needs.

Councillor McMahon added: “Each district will have its own fully-staffed town hall. Frontline services will eventually be devolved to neighbourhoods.”

He said of the budget revisions: “Most striking is the investment in neighbourhoods and co-operative working. It is frustrating as a member of a district partnership to never have any money make real differences in our particular areas.

“There will now be a fund for big-ticket items, such as extensions to libraries and playgrounds. You can have as many talking shops as you want, but if people want to deliver on the ground they need the resources to do it.”