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Advice cuts: Prevention is better than cure
• I AM of course aware of the significant interest being taken in the council’s review of the voluntary sector.
While the council is not going to hesitate to explain difficult decisions, the press coverage of this process has been rather simplistic and some further background may be helpful.
The Lib Dem-Conservative Partnership Administration is united in support of the review of voluntary sector funding, and committed to the current detailed consultation on our approach, a consultation that will play a big role in helping determine the decisions we will take in January on funding priorities.
This involves a shift to negotiated funding and commissioning to help ensure we get the maximum from the taxpayers’ money we commit to voluntary organisations.
Three specific points are important:
Firstly, the overall level of funding next year is going to remain the same as this year, some £8.5 million.
Camden will remain one of the most generous boroughs in funding the voluntary sector.
Secondly, we are proposing redrawn criteria for allocating our funding, including some new priorities, but the percentage we will give to each area of activity, such as advice services or community centres, is not yet firmed up and the final decision will be able to draw on the feedback from the consultation.
Thirdly, the figures being bandied around for possible reductions in some organisations, such as the Law Centre or the CAB, assume that every currently funded organisation will simply have its funding altered automatically in line with an overall change.
This is not correct, there is no such automatic change, the whole point of commissioning and negotiated funding is that each case is looked at individually.
We know how much good work the voluntary sector is doing in Camden, and we welcome the useful feedback we are now receiving from voluntary sector organisations.
Residents in the borough will also know the overall financial constraints we operate under, and we believe will recognise the need for a funding approach that makes our money go as far as possible and encourages innovation in provision.
CLLR ANDREW MARSHALL
Deputy Leader of the Council Borough of Camden
• LIKE many Liberal Democrat colleagues I am keen to maintain Camden Council’s financial assistance to Camden Community Law Centre and the Citizens Advice Bureaux.
But as founder of a successful credit union I must take issue with Stuart Chadbourne, chief executive of the CAB, who suggests that using money to launch a credit union “would be a step backwards” (Lib Dems break ranks over advice centre cuts, CNJ, November 23).
I would remind Mr Chadbourne that prevention is better than cure. While I readily acknowledge that the CAB do invaluable work helping those who have fallen into debt, the point of the credit union is that it would help keep people out of trouble in the first place.
It would do that by making affordable credit available to those on low incomes who are at present all too easily forced into the hands of loan sharks because commercial banks refuse them accounts.
The Camden Credit Union is a thoroughly progressive proposal with huge potential to make life better for the less well-off residents , and I welcome Camden Liberal Democrats’ intention to make it a reality.
ROBIN YOUNG
Bedford Court Mansions, WC1
• CONGRATULATIONS to the campaigners in Kentish Town who have forced our two Lib Dem councillors to admit they were wrong to support 43 per cent cuts to our local advice centre and CAB (Lib Dems break ranks over advice centre cuts, Nov 23).
However, it is clear that this U-turn is just a desperate attempt to head off Lib Dem defeat at our by-election on 7 December.
I have received lots of leaflets from the various parties in recent weeks and it has been Revd Sam McBratney who has been most firm in opposing the council’s cuts – the Lib Dems have not mentioned the advice centres at all. As a consequence we can have no confidence that they will continue their ‘opposition’ once the by-election has passed and local people can no longer send them a message via the ballot box.
Nor can we have any faith in their ability to stop the cuts given that they have already been approved by the Tory/Lib Dem executive running Camden.
MARK PEMBERTON
Grafton Crescent, NW1
• THANK you to the CNJ for its coverage of the campaign to stop the proposed cuts to Kentish Town Advice CAB and Camden Law Centre.
These are important local services dedicated to the vulnerable – and of all things to cut they should be the last on the list, not the first.
This week I visited the CAB and saw what great work they do. Among many other things, they help local people struggling with big debts, especially around Christmas time. These include rent arrears and council tax payments. The CAB actually helps the council to get its money back! But more importantly, they help people out of the poverty trap and give them hope.
The Town Hall needs to hear how vital these services are. I hope other people will help me to send a clear message to them on December 7 by casting their one vote for Labour.
SAM MCBRATNEY
Labour Candidate for Kentish Town
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