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Cllr James Kempton |
Historic cross-party summit lets opposition air wish lists
Lib Dems disappointed by ‘lack of progress’ at budget meeting
“WHEELING and dealing” councillors met at a historic cross-party summit on Tuesday as the Lib Dems were forced to share budget plans in a bid to win votes.
High-ranking Labour councillors had their first real taste of power in eight years as the ruling party unveiled a £13.5million list of planned cuts, which they can only implement if they can convince Labour – or Green councillor Katie Dawson and former Lib Dem finance chief Councillor Andrew Cornwell – to vote with them.
Parking charges will rise, senior managerial posts will be deleted, and one children’s home will close, according to the budget, which will be considered at next month’s executive meeting.
Town Hall insiders say there is likely to be much negotiating as all sides scramble to include their own wish list in the budget in return for essential votes.
The Lib Dems want to freeze the cost of school meals, backbenchers’ allowances and also keep council tax below the level of inflation.
Labour wants to extend free school meals to more children, and slash “wasteful spending” on the Town Hall’s PR budget, hospitality expenses, glossy magazine Islington Now, agency staff and cut executive members’ allowances.
Cllr Cornwell is calling for a £100 council tax cut for pensioners paid for by cuts in refreshments, using private venues for meetings, redundancy payments for senior managers, lower spending on consultants and cuts in councillors’ allowances.
Cllr Dawson is working on a list of ideas, including a reuse and repair scheme, where residents can take broken items to be fixed instead of letting them fall into landfill.
Cllr Dawson wants to tie this into an apprenticeship scheme.
She said: “There’s a lot of wheeling and dealing going on. It’s very exciting for me because there’s a lot of scope for me to get some really good green initiatives in there.
“Neither Labour nor the Lib Dems can get their budget through without my support so I’m in quite a strong situation.”
Cllr Cornwell said: “This was a short meeting but it was a genuinely historic one for Islington politics – probably the first time ever the budget has been discussed in cross-party talks.”
He added: “Most of the proposals come from work I have done over last summer and autumn. In general the savings are efficiencies designed to protect frontline services.
“However a small number of ‘savings’ are in reality service cuts which I don’t support, and I have previously made this clear to the Lib Dem group.”
Cllr Kempton said: “I was disappointed that after all the fuss Labour made they came to the meeting without any proposals.
“If we’re going to work together to produce a budget, we don’t have much time. We didn’t achieve as much as I’d hoped.”
Cllr Kempton said he was determined to keep council tax increases below the level of inflation but feared Labour would return with spending demands and calls to increase council tax further.
But, Labour leader Cllr West said it was “not appropriate” to increase council tax in the current circumstances, adding: “Our proposals will not include a council tax increase.
“I think James is most afraid of cutting his PR budget.
“I’m disappointed we weren’t invited to earlier budget meetings. It was only when Cllr Cornwell left the executive that Cllr Kempton’s newfound level of consensus was discovered.” |
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