D-Day for Liverpool

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 - today Liverpool City Council meet as a whole to debate and vote on the Budget - a Budget that Deputy Council Leader Paul Brant has declared is the toughest for the city for decades or even since the war.

The proposals were launched a little over a week ago - you can read my thoughts on them here - Spotlight on Liverpool - now the time has come to vote but I think it is important to give a little bit of background to the process in between and my thoughts on it.

Last Friday on the 25th Feb the Council Cabinet met to vote on the Budget allowing it to progress to the Finance Select Committee that evening. They then discuss and vote allowing it to proceed to full Council tonight.

After the rhetoric from local and national Government on Liverpool's proposals, the anger they caused and the protests the weekend after they were announced the first thing to say about both meetings is that they were calm - relaxed even. Both from the Councillors who seemed resigned to the proposals and from the public who despite being allowed to both meetings and invited to speak at both were very quiet indeed - noone spoke at Cabinet and just two points on Liverpool Direct Limited were made at the Finance Select Committee.

On the point of the public it must be noted that this is likely to change tonight. Though they could speak at both meetings last week they were more discussions of procedure than the cuts themselves - it is tonight where they can really be heard and, of course, reported by the inevitable media gathering. In fact on her blog Cllr. Paula Keaveney claims that the Council are refusing to allow more than the usual 6 people/30 minute of public discussion tonight - a move the Lib Dem grouping will attempt to reverse by asking for an extension. Paula Keaveney - Let more people speak on budget. It matters! It is a shame these same people did not want to speak at the meetings last Friday too.

However on the point of the Councillors being calm on the cuts there is a point to raise again here - by attempting big tent politics Cllr. Anderson has, in my opinion, stifled the natural debate and discussion on the cuts proposals. It may have been for good intentions but at the Cabinet meeting both Cllr. Anderson and Cllr. Brant made a point of saying the party leaders coming together killed off any argument this budget was political - surely this was one large reason for that 'big tent'.

Cllr. Andrew Makinson for the Lib Dems in the Finance Select Committee meeting led the only real discussion on areas of the Budget asking about the removal of the Working Neighbourhoods Fund in one go. Cllr. Brant said the previous administration had been wrong to not predict that the national Govt. would withdraw thei funding for this and front-load their cuts. Cllr. Radford also claimed that this had been funded from a temporary fund within the Council and had it been funded from elsewhere within the Budget, a more permanent fund, in the first place the Council may not have had to take the tough decision.

On the Big Society and whether the National Govt. claimed desire to remove some CRB checks would save some cash Cllr. Brant was unsure but did point out that in an interview with TalkSport when the producers had wanted a contact to represent the Big Society they had been passed from Govt. department to Govt. department with noone admitting responsibility and therfore able to provide a contact. Cllr. Brant said it was not possible to rely on the changes to CRB therfore.

Cllr. Steve Radford of the Liberal Party did make the point raised on this blog that perhaps the Council could have been more upfront as to where the savings or cuts were going to be made - he was concerned about how deliverable they would be without giving people an initial indication. The point I have made is that the headline figures on cuts have been announced but no real decision apart from on a few childrens centres on what will actually be cut. Cllr. Brant said everyone had worked "astonishingly hard in a short space of time" given the funding from National Govt. was only confirmed on the 10th Feb. The Finance Director also pointed out that though they had announced quite a fe consultations on where to make cuts actually some of these were subject to statutory guidelines - although she was not specific as to which were and were not.

On consultation I have previusly discussed the YouChoose tool for the public to have a go at balancing the Budget - it was announced just 581 people had used this - the demographic was also skewed to younger people. I think the link had been shared via Facebook and Twitter - I doubt whether the responses could be taken as representative.

Queries were raised about the Pupil Premium and whether the Council would get more money than expected and about National Non Domestic (Business) rates and the concerns that National Govt. seemed to be indicating the national part of the that the Council gets could be cut.

Cllr. Makinson also raised a point about the reduction to the street cleaning budget saying his area seemed to be deteriorating. Cllr. Anderson quickly batted this down suggesting that it seemed only Lib Dem areas were being cleaned less well!

Finally the Chair Cllr. Paul Clein called for United Utilities to be consulted as the population of a city can be judged by the amount of sewage - they are directly proportional apparently - who knew?! With the Census coming up there was a chance the population would be calculated less than the actual amount of people and with a per person level of funding they needed all the people they could get!

All in all a fairly calm and relaxed day of meetings.

Today will almost certainly be different - the Lib Dem grouping have already suggested they will be asking for amendments on saving the four Children Centres amongst others. Save Children's centres say Liverpool Lib Dems. But the problem remains that with all the parties party to the cuts proposals any real discussion or call to amend will not be as powerful as it could have been.

It will be left to the public to shout the loudest - and they will - I shall be at the meeting later.

Kickoff is 5pm.