Lib-Dems attack Labour’s budget

‘Betrayal of promises’ - Lynne Thompson 

LIB-DEMS have slammed Oldham Council’s new budget, accusing Labour of breaking promises and imposing stealth cuts.

Labour, who took power after last month’s elections, says its emergency budget includes more than £2 million of changes that will give power back to the people.

But opposition spokeswoman for finance and human resources, Lynne Thompson, said: “The mini-budget is a betrayal of promises — thin, backward-looking and hypocritical in its blind-side attacks on the vulnerable.”

Labour says it is showing financial prudence by staying within the existing Lib-Dem budget at no extra cost to council taxpayers.

Proposals include free parking for disabled drivers, extra support for school leavers, more power to district partnerships, reopening Limecroft care home and working towards paying staff a decent living wage.

Labour says its budget revisions will kick-start the transformation into a co-operative council which promises a bigger say for residents.

Councillors’ allowances and benefits and their support services will be cut.

Councillor Thompson said the party’s opposition budget in February had claimed they would save an extra £4.5 million, reverse £3.4 million of spending reductions and splash £1.3 million on new projects. But she claims both savings and spending have dwindled to just £870,000.

She added: “Monday’s cabinet meeting was rich on the usual rhetoric about ‘protecting the most vulnerable’, but from £2.5 million plus promised in the alternative budget to put back into social services, just a tiny £150,000 materialised.

“And the benefit? Extra weeks of respite care? No — the same but at up to three times the weekly cost in a home needing wholesale modernisation — but it brings back jobs for council workers.

“What’s on the table shows the real priorities; social care takes a back seat to free parking at Tandle Hill and Daisy Nook, and pay rises for council staff. What hypocrisy!

“Stealth cuts include a counselling service for troubled teenagers, major programmes of environmental improvements and halving the money for the gulley-clearing backlog.”

Labour’s budget will be examined at a meeting of the council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Thursday.