Which Services Would Reading Labour Cut?

I read online this week that Labour councillors in Reading are opposed to the Coalition Council's plans to charge residents for Green Waste Collections.

This service isn't free to deliver. So how would they pay for it?

They say they care about local services but how would they fund them?

Over the past year Labour councillors in Reading have opposed every single saving we have identified and every charge we have sought to introduce which when taken together help protect services to the most vulnerable.

In their mindless opposition to everything Labour councillors have not differentiated between bulky waste charges and day centre charges: they are opposed to them all.

When pressed as to what they would do to fund services the Labour Group Leader stated that "we wouldn't start from here".

So no alternative Budget was tabled.

This near silence has left me in no doubt at all that were they running the Council now Labour would be cutting more jobs and axing more services than the Coalition Administration has.

So the question then becomes not if but what would Labour cut and which services would they axe.

Libraries? Leisure Centres? Sure Start Centres?

Labour councillors are always quick to point the finger at us but more reticient about offering solutions..

Under the Liberal Democrat - Conservative control of Reading Borough Council none of these services in Reading will close, and in the case of libraries the reality is quite the reverse with opening hours being extended across the town.

So in Reading politics the real political gap that is opening up is one of credibility.

As former Labour minister Hazel Blears commented earlier this week: it's time Labour got real and told the public what they would cut.

We know that former Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling's plans planned in massive cuts in  public spending:

"Darling’s three-year cash freeze, to begin in 2011, will mean big cuts in real spending for government departments. Compared with this year’s expected £387 billion total for spending by departments, the equivalent by 2013-4 will be £351 billion"

And outgoing Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne helpfully confirmed his Party's financial legacy when on leaving office he announced "there is no money left".

So how would Reading Labour councillors have dealt with this?

Locally It has been widely known in that in setting this year's budget the Council needed to find in the region of £19 million pounds worth of savings in one year as a result of reductions in government grant.

Finding these savings was far from easy but Lib Dem and Conservative Councillors did what had to be done to balance the budget in order to fund services that local residents hold dear including libraries, leisure services, children's services and care for the elderly.

As part of this process in January this year the Council’s Cabinet considered a report setting out saving targets and income proposals to help set the budget for the financial year 2011/12.

One of the proposals agreed by Cabinet was to introduce charges for the collection of green waste.

Labour councillors opposed the plans in their entirety failing to put forward any alternative.

And it gets worse.

Once again by burying they heads in the sand and favouring the "doing nothing" Labour councillors are once again defending unfairness.

Under Labour's Green Waste collection service Council Tax payers living in properties without gardens, for example flats, or those who are unable to take advantage of the green waste collection service have been subsidising those who could.

Not very fair, is it?

At a time when the Council must prioritise spending charging people who use green waste collections rather than cutting essential services would seem to me to be a fairer way of approaching savings.

Many Local Authorities currently impose a charge for the collection of green waste and many more will be in the future.

So the question is - if Labour are opposed to raising revenue through fees and charges what services would they cut to balance the Council's budget?

You don't need to look very far to see what Labour-run councils have done when faced with budget pressures.

In Manchester Labour closed five libraries, cut bin collections and closed leisure centres.

Down the road in Sheffield (run by the Lib Dems) councillors had to make identical savings (more than 8 % of their total budget) but there they kep every swimming pool, library and Sure Start Centre open.

In Camden Labour closed two SureStart Centre and cut library services.

Across England not one Sure Start Centre has closed where Lib Dems control councils.

So what would Reading Labour do?

Their previous record in local government is a useful guide:

When they ran the Council Labour habitually increased Council Tax.

In 2000/01 – the Band D council tax in Reading was £848. By 2010 it had risen to £1,500.

This is a 77% increase – meanwhile over the same period inflation increased by 26%.

Over a 10 year period, when Labour ran the Council in Reading Council Tax rose at three times the rate of inflation.

We have calculated that by opposing all our savings proposals, if Labour were in control they would increase next year’s Council Tax by 30%.

With elections coming up it's about time local Labour councillors came clean with Reading residents about how they would pay for services: Council Tax hike or slash and burn?

Centre for Cities tips Reading to benefit from localist approach

In their report, Cities Outlook 2011 the Centre for Cities has identified Reading as one of five cities to watch. OK, so technically Reading isn't a city...yet. But the conclusions of this report are interesting.
It concludes:

"Five cities to watch: Milton Keynes, Reading, Aberdeen, Leeds and Bristol.  These places will be better-insulated from the economic impact of the spending squeeze, and have high potential to create private sector jobs. They have lower vulnerability to public sector job losses and spending cuts, and given the right powers and freedoms could make an even bigger contribution to the national economic recovery."

The conclusions here are very welcome but generally speaking pretty non-controversial. The Centre for Cities and others have been saying for a number of years that Reading has all the right ingredients to prosper for a whole range of reasons - not least excellent transport links, a number of blue-chip and high-tech employers, as well as a World class University on our doorstep.

In the past I have pointed out that this narrative while compelling has a tendency to ignore other less rosy realities about Reading - that of a widening health and skills gap and pockets of real poverty. Sadly these problems still exist and is one of the reasons I work the hours as I do as a councillor.

As an administration it is encouraging to hear positive things about Reading but we are in no way complacent about the role the Council and others needs to play to support economic recovery and growth and to support individuals who find themselves in difficulty.

The final part of the paragraph above is the bit that interests me in particular: the suggestion that with greater freedoms and responsibilities Reading could not only become more independent but also make an enhanced contribution towards the national economic recovery.

For many years Reading has been described as the economic powerhouse of the Thames Valley by commentators both local and national:

• In 2009 Reading was selected by the same think tank as second in UK in the Centre for Cities Economic Prosperity Index.
• In 2008 the Centre for Cities noted that 40% of Reading's workforce is employed in the top twenty exporting sectors, nearly double the proportion in Stoke and Doncaster.

Last May in the Coalition Agreement the government a commitment to devolving more power and responsibility to local councils:

'We will promote the radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups. This will include a review of local government finance.'

This policy shift follows a 13 year period of unprecedented centralisation by the previous Labour government which forced councils like Reading to follow central diktats not only in relation to particular policies but also in relation to things like council housing rent - millions of pounds of which was diverted back to Whitehall each year.

A hangover of this is that like other councils Reading is also unable to set business rates. I raised this last point with Danny Alexander, when he visited Reading as part of the Spending Review consultation last summer and he made positive noises. More recently Nick Clegg has argued for more powers for councils over raising and spending revenue.

Plans to reform business rates were included in the Liberal Democrat Manifesto in 2010 and I am pleased to see it continue in Coalition Government policy. The Centre for Cities in their manifesto in 2010 argued strongly for the re-localisation of business rates, the benefits of which they suggested were as follows:-

• The UK is one of the most highly centralised states in the developed world. Currently, the only source of local tax revenue is Council Tax. Local government raises 17 percent of its income from local taxation, compared to the OECD average of 55 percent.
• Giving local authorities more control of the business rate provides them with a stronger incentive to support the right local conditions for economic and jobs growth because councils themselves will reap more of the financial benefits. For example, this should make Councils more pro-growth in their approach to dealing with planning decisions. Businesses regularly identify delays in the planning system as a major barrier to their growth.
• More control over the way business rates are raised means more freedom over how funds are spent locally – with less reliance on centrally distributed grants, with strings attached.

I hope Nick Clegg makes progress on this issue in Cabinet as I think the benefits to Reading could be substantial.

Action needed to tackle Reading's housing crisis

The Reading Evening Post has picked up on Shelter's campaign to highlight the dire shortage of affordable housing across the UK , including here in Reading. But as I pointed out to Anna Roberts who penned the story - the true picture in Reading is actually even worse than the one Shelter describes. A recent report I commissioned as Chair of the Housing, Health and Community Care Scrutiny panel investigating the problem of overcrowding in our Borough revealed the number of people on the Council's housing waiting list has risen from around 4,400 in April 2008 to approximately 6,000 in February 2010. There is no doubt that this increase is linked with the impact of the recession - something I have consistently raised as a councillor over the past 2 years. Across Britain this figure rises to 1.8 million families - this is a damning indictment of Labour's failed housing policies. In Reading the demand for larger homes vastly outsrips supply and it's damaging the health and well-being of thousands of children and families in our Town. There are 186 families registered as needed a property with 4 bedrooms or more and only 3 x 5 bedroom properties belonging to the Council! I have been vocal in campaigning to highlight the lack of affordable social homes for families in Reading for years. An independent inspection of RBC agreed with me highlighting lack of family housing. When the housing strategy was discussed I argued for the Council to work with housing associations to provide more larger family houses to help meet local demand for good quality homes. But the timescales for delivery are still too far in the future because the rate of building is just too low. I've also campaigned extensively to get the Council to use it's powers to encourage more landlords to bring empty properties back into use and for standards to be improved in the private rented sector. We struggle in Reading to have the space to build large amounts of new housing so the Council and other housing partners have to be creative about getting more out of existing stock. Over the past 2 years RBC has placed 600 households in the private sector. This is not all the solution but it is part of of it. In Scrutiny last month we discussed the need to review the Council's under-occupiers policy to make moving into smaller homes more appealing to residents and how to get more out of existing council housing. Council officers are not to blame for the housing crisis we face - responsibility lies with the Labour government and it's failed housing policy. The Lib Dems have long argued we need to restore more powers to councils to build social homes and retain council rents. House building in the UK is at it's lowest level since the 1920s and there is an urgent need to build more affordable housing after Labour failed to reverse the damage done by the Conservative's Right To Buy policy which saw many of Reading's family-sized council houses sold off. Under Labour the Treasury has taken millions of pounds worth of tenants' rent when it should have gone on building more council homes locally. The policy of the Labour government has been to focus too much on so-called first time buyers and to overlook can't-afford-to-buyers - the thousands of people who have been priced out of the market. The latest stamp duty cut announced in Darling's pre-election Budget will not help those who have no chance of getting a mortgage or raising enough cash for a deposit. The housing bubble that the Labour government fuelled a few years ago ended up with many people getting into massive debt trying to get a foot on the housing ladder only to find they couldn't keep up repayments on their mortgages. Buy-to-let in Reading has ended up with too many buy-to-leave empty homes. Too many repossessions have taken place in Reading and the recession has had a terrible impact on people - particularly in relation to housing. We need to look at sustainable ways to tackle the housing crisis and to give everyone a fair chance of decent housing. The recently announced Lib Dem policy to bring hundreds of thousands of empty homes back into use as social homes (which would also create thousands of construction jobs) must be part of that package.

Scrutiny review on impact of alcohol launched

One of the issues I have been campaigning on in Reading is improving public health. This is closely linked to my passion for tackling inequality and campaigning for a fairer Reading. As Chair of the Housing, Health and Community Care Scrutiny Panel since 2008 I have led a number of scrutiny reviews on health issues in Reading including recent investigations into dementia care services, the local ambulance service and children's health. You can find out more about the campaigning I've been involved in on health issues over the past few years over on my ward blog.

As Vice-Chair of the Council's Corporate, Community & External Affairs Panel I have been involved in scoping a new scrutiny review that has been launched: into the impact of alcohol. The review to be led by councillors will investigate the impact of alcohol consumption on local families and communities - a huge issue, I think you'll agree. It will also assess the treatment services that are currently provided in the Reading area. The Council is currently developing an 'alcohol strategy' which our scrutiny review will help inform.

As part of the review an open meeting is planned to take place at the Civic Offices on Saturday 6 March between 10 am and 2pm. The meeting is open to members of the public. Please do come along if you are free. It is really important that the views of local people are included in the review. Following the open meeting the Panel will agree recommendations - to the Council's Cabinet but also hopefully health bodies and other partners.

So why is this issue so important? Some startling facts about the impact of alcohol in Reading taken from the scoping document we discussed last night:

• In 2008 Reading had the highest level of recorded crime attributable to alcohol in the South East (17.28% compared to average of 9.18% in the region)
• Anti-social behaviour related to alcohol use is a priority for 50% of Neighbourhood Action Groups in Reading (Tilehurst East, Oxford Road North, Town Centre, Newtown, Oxford Road South, Redlands, University and Katesgrove)
• A 6.8% increase in alcohol-related hospital admissions between 2008/9 and 2007/8 was recorded
• 68% of alcohol-related admissions in Reading are for chronic conditions
• The largest number of hospital admissions occurs in the older age groups (over 35yrs)

The figures above show that alcohol has a big impact on health and public safety in Reading and affects many people in the community. Concerns have been raised locally about whether or not enough resources are put into helping people who are struggling with alcohol - compared to drugs. We will investigate what support is available in the course of the view. I hope we will be hearing from people who have used local services as well as those that deliver them.

I look forward to participating in this review and I'm hopeful it will help inform what Reading Borough Council, the Police and the Primary Care Trust do in the future to help reduce the harmful impacts of alcohol on the community.

Council tenants fuming at Labour's "cleaning tax" on poor

I'm pleased to say my campaign for a fair deal for Council tenants in Reading is really gaining momentum. You may recall as part of my campaign I have been calling for better value cleaning services for RBC. tenants on estates in Reading.

The Labour politicians that run the Council in Reading are planning to start charging tenants for cleaning services later this year (due to the black hole in the Council's housing budget - courtesy of the Labour government's failed housing finance policies), and despite the fact that a recent survey carried out by the Council found that thousands of tenants are dissatisfied by the cleaning services they receive from RBC.

The scrutiny review I led towards the end of last year found that there was much room for improvement in this Council service area with cleaning in many areas patchy at best. Labour were forced to delay the implementation of charging for cleaning services after the poor feedback from tenants.

It is disappointing that so many tenants are clearly not getting value for money services from their Council. Anyway, this evening I received a letter from a resident who lives in West Reading supporting my campaign and deeply dissatisfied with Labour:

"I wish to say I was very pleased to see in the local paper that someone is standing up for Council tenants against these charges. My son who has earning difficulties...and his wife who has a part-time job...really can't afford extra with the rent going up as well...to around £80 per week that they are expected to pay - and as there are only 2 other flats who pay full rent (no subsidy) - they are the only ones affected - it's certainly not fair on them."

My correspondent goes on to say that cleaning on the estate where her daughter lives receives very little thorough cleaning: 'only a sweep through every fortnight and no reports on items that need mending/repairing'.

I like getting feedback from local people as it helps me keep in touch with what they think as opposed to what Labour politicians think local people are thinking...

The letter finishes: "Thinking of you and hoping you will get help from other councillors."

I received an email along a similar vein last night:

"I would like to thank you again for all your sterling efforts...I know you will do your best to press the issue. I believe that a lot more Labour councillors will lose their seats in the May election, which can only help!

My campaign for fair deal for Reading's Council tenants continues.

Campaigning for a fair deal for Council tenants

It may not have generated many headlines but the Labour administration's decision to put the rent up on Reading Borough Council properties will hit many Council tenants - namely those who are not in receipt of benefits and who account around 30% of all RBC tenants (there are around 7,300 Council tenants in total).

As Chair of the Housing Scrutiny Panel in Reading I been actively monitoring the impact on the recession on residents in Reading over the past year to ensure people who needed help were getting it from the Council, and a couple of sad things this study revealed was the increase over the past year of number of people accessing RBC debt services, and claiming financial support to help them meet their housing costs.

As I said in a Council meeting when the issue of the proposed rent increase was debated a few weeks ago - it is with a heavy heart that as a political Party we, the Lib Dems, lend our support to plans to increase charges for some of Reading's poorest families many of them just living above or on the poverty line.

But thanks to the way that successive Conservative and Labour governments have messed up housing finance RBC is left between a rock and a hard place when it comes to securing the future of council-owned housing stock. The Council is forced to charge tenants more because government keeps taking money away from councils like Reading to spend elsewhere.

We do not and should not point the finger of blame at Council officers who are struggle to balance the books in the Council's housing department: the failure to reform our arcane system of housing finance is a failure of this Labour government over a period of years.

The same Labour government which has abandoned its commitment to fairness and demonstrated time and time again through its own policies that is is not on the side of the poorest, including Council tenants.

As Nick Clegg has said repeatedly: the only Party that is genuinely committed to fairness for all is the Liberal Democrats.

The way council housing is currently funded is unfair on councils but more importantly it's unfair on council tenants. The way that council housing finance is centrally controlled by government makes it impossible for councils to have any real power or autonomy over their own spending and by extension limits this limits power they have to set rents and manage their own housing stock.

Alongside my Lib Dem colleagues on Reading Borough Council, as housing spokesperson I have campaigned for many years for an end to the system of so-called 'negative subsidy' - an unfair tax on Council tenants.

The sad fact of the matter is that were it not for the millions of pounds worth of rent RBC is forced to pay back to the Treasury every year there would be no need for the Council to increase the rent.

The Lib Dems would like to see the cash raised by local councils through rent spent on improving council housing stock in local areas and on building more new council houses - not subsidising government spending elsewhere.

This time last year we won backing from Labour and Tory councillors in Reading for our campaign for action to reform our rotten council housing finance system.

And nationally reform is on its way, apparently, but the government's 'change of heart' will not bring change soon enough for tenants here in Reading or anywhere else. A consultation was launched by Labour nationally but nothing will happen this side of the General Election or this financial year. So the rent has gone up.

Service Charges

Problems for tenants do not end with rent increases. Thanks to the way Labour has structured finance nationally RBC has been forced to start charging tenants extra for services they used to receive as part of their rent.

I succeeded in getting officers to delay plans to introduce charges after the Labour administration got itself into a bit of muddle just before Christmas in a botched consultation. The new charges for lighting in communal areas are set to come in in April.

Several tenants contacted me recently angry about Labour's charging plans. One tenant wrote:

"It is clear to me that these charges represent just another tax on the hardworking families that the Labour government - and Labour-dominated Reading Borough Council claim they want to help."

A report going to Cabinet next week reveals 55 tenants have written to RBC saying they oppose the plans to vary tenancies to allow Labour to introduce service charges.

Higher rent and service charges will make life even more difficult for tenants who are in arrears. RBC plans to send out leaflets with all the rent increase letters to encourage tenants to "contact the rent service if they experience any problems paying their rent."

I challenged the Labour Lead Member for Housing, Cllr Deborah Edwards, at the last full Council meeting about the way the Labour-administration treats tenants who fall behind with rent payments.

Does threatening tenants who fail to pay their rent on time constitute support, I asked. I quoted from an incredibly crass article which featured in the Council Tax Payer funded December edition of Housing News entitled "Rent comes first: Don't be Ho, Ho, Homeless this Christmas"

Cllr Edwards failed to apologise publicly to tenants for the article despite my requests for her to do so, choosing instead to attack those tenants who contacted me who were deeply offended by the article for being "thin-skinned".

Is this what people expected when they voted Labour all those years ago? On seeing the article one tenant commented to me:

"This is the sort of thing you might expect from a Tory Council, not a Labour one!

But as Sarah Teather, Lib Dem Housing Spokesperson pointed out in her speech at our Party's Federal Conference last year the Conservatives have no plans to do things differently if they form the next government:

"Blue-red, red-blue, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown what’s the difference?

That’s why the Tories won’t change any Labour policies – because they’re all Tory policies in the first place."

But it's not all doom and gloom. I'm really pleased to see the Labour-administration have pledged the continuation and extension of the so-called Decent Neighbourhoods Fund in Reading over the next financial year. Investment in the infrastructure of housing estates in Reading is something I have actively championed and campaigned for over a period of years.

To the frustration of tenants and residents, Labour in Reading have taken their eye off the ball and allowed estates to become rundown and neglected in their headlong rush to chase 'Decent Homes' targets. Decent homes are important but so are our neighbourhoods: people want to live in clean and safe areas - and I think they have a right to expect that their Council will work to keep them that way.

I have seen the tangible benefits that investment in estate areas can bring communities on an estate in my own ward - Hexham Road. As PPC for Reading West I will campaign for estates across West Reading and West Berkshire to benefit from the same investment, and the same improved quality of life for the benefit of residents who live on them.

Lib Dems: Proud of our Town

This evening my Lib Dem colleagues and I on Reading Borough Council spoke out against Labour's latest bid to get Reading city status.

I've attached the speech I gave below:

"When I first hard about Labour's latest bid to go for city status I wanted to find out what local people thought about this, so I asked them.

This is just a handful of the comments I received:

"i'm not sure that Reading become a city will make a lot of difference to its residents"

"What would it bring us except more pubs & clubs like the last attempts?"

"Reading is tiny, not really a city at all. What benefits would it bring?!"

"What is the benefit of city status? Other than presumably higher council tax!"

and my personal favourite:

"if I wished to live in a city I would have stayed in London."

A couple of people told me they supported the idea, but they were outnumbered by the deeply sceptical.

What's in it for us? They said.

What's wrong with being a town?

Is bigger, necessarily better?

These are the key questions people are asking.

This Council should be about serving the people: not serving ourselves.

Improving the lot of people who live in our town should be our top priority: not selling the town's soul to the highest bidder.

Can the Leader of the Council please explain to me and the people of Reading:

What problems or challenges do we currently face that would be solved by Reading becoming a city?

In this Borough the boundaries we share with our neighbours have always been a source of conflict.

What good will re-opening these old wounds do?

This bid says more about the Reading Labour Party than it does about the needs of the people we are meant to serve.

It is redolent of the era of John Howarth: endless vanity projects that Labour in Reading have tried and failed to foist on local people.

Without asking local people what they actually want.

Such as:

- The failed One Way IDR
- And recent abortive attempts to build a politicians palace in place of the old civic

Thanks to the mismanagement of the nation's finances Gordon Brown has left this town and its people saddled with a mountain of debt.

We are facing perhaps the tighest budget round in this Council's history.

We are asking officers to do more, with less.

I think local people would like the the officers of this Council to focus on tackling the real problems of thousands of people in Reading are facing today:

1. We have just come out of a period of some of the most severe weather this town has ever experienced.
2. There are currently just under 4,000 people out of work - the majoity of whom are aged between 20 and 24;
3. There are around 5,000 people currently trying to access social housing;
4. Thousands of children are growing up in real poverty under our very noses their lives blighted by poor housing and poor health;
5. And we need as a Council to care for a fast-growing ageing population - the demands of which are placing a huge strain on our finances.

I am happy to admit that for the Lib Dem Group these and many other important issues take priority over bidding for city status.

Because we put local people first.

Local businesses may have been judged by a London-based thinktank to have 'weathered' this recession

But this has not been without pain: job losses, businesses going under.

- Do Reading businesses genuinely have £60,000 lying around just to throw at another bid which is doomed to fail or where there is no guarantee of success?

- Surely that money could be better spent, or invested in things that would really benefit local people?"

The Tories on Reading Borough Council are backing Labour's bid.

Predictably, they are both accusing us of "doing the Town down".

They could not be more wrong.

As Lib Dems we are proud to stand up for what we believe in: proud to speak up for local people and proud to campaign for action on local issues.

Yes, we are fiercely localist: we listen to the local people that elected us and ask them what they think the priorities should be.

I feel strongly that at times like this when many people are in the town are struggling the Council must focus on it's core business: supporting local people.

And as we climb out of recession, we really cannot afford to waste Council time and resources on yet another Labour vanity project.

Supporting residents and traders in Tilehurst

At the start of the week my Lib Dem colleagues Cllr Ricky Duveen, Cllr Peter Beard and Cllr Chris Harris scored a win for the residents and traders of Tilehurst. They suceeded in getting Labour-run Reading Borough Council to drop plans to charge residents to park in Dunstall Close and Recreation Road car parks.

These plans were flawed and ill-thought out - Ricky gives the background to the plan over on his blog. Lib Dem councillors rightly protested to the Council over the lack of public consultation with residents or councillors.

Tilehurst Village is a popular and thriving local shopping area - the Council should be doing everything it can to encourage local people to do their shopping there. Things are hard enough as it for shoppers and traders in this recession.

These proposls were part of Labour's plans for a 25% hike in car parking charges across the Borough.

I'm a supporter of the Federation of Small Business' 'Keep Trade Local Campaign. A key part of their 'Keep Trade Local Manifesto' is fairer parking charges in town centres and high streets to help support local traders.

I have been invited by the Thames Valley Federation for Small Businesses to take part in a hustings ahead of the General Election, which I'm looking forward to.

As a result of the action taken by local Lib Dem councillors in Tilehurst Labour councillors have been forced to go back to the drawing board to come up with more sensible proposals. These are likely to include free parking for the first hour and charging thereafter (to deter commuter parking).

I was out in Tilehurst yesterday with Pete Beard and Ricky Duveen. They told me about their battle to get the Council to improve the quality of Tilehurst car parks in recent years - including improving facilities for disabled drivers and getting car parks resurfaced.