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Tight budget for the city

6 March 2008

Labour shows true colours by pushing through 4% council tax rise, agreeing to privatise leisure services and rejecting IWCA proposal to redistribute money to working class areas

The city council’s budget for the coming year, set earlier this month by a temporary Labour–Green coalition, is bad news for Oxford’s working class.

Labour managed to overturn the Lib Dem administration in order to introduce a higher council tax increase of 4% and put up parking charges. However, only a small proportion of the extra £1.5 million raised will be spent on the services and facilities that are badly needed in poorer areas. In addition, the Labour–Green budget accepts the Lib Dem proposal to privatise council leisure services.

Stuart Craft, leader of the IWCA group on the council, explained, ‘This budget follows the New Labour policy of attacking the working class while rewarding the rich. Labour insisted on further increases to council tax—which hits the least well-off hardest—and at the same time rejected redistributive measures that would help working class areas of Oxford.’

The Labour budget comes on top of the £3.5 million worth of cuts proposed by the Lib Dems in order to balance the books.

Blackbird Leys IWCA representative Lee Cole said in his speech to the Town Hall, ‘It is regrettable that after almost a quarter of a century of Labour running the council and, more recently, two years of Lib Dem minority administration, we now find ourselves having to make massive savings.

‘While we have to question the way in which the council has been run, the blame lies, in no small part, with the New Labour government which has relentlessly reduced funding to local authorities in real terms, causing average council tax to double since 1997.’

Proposals for redistribution

The Independent Working Class Association proposed a below-inflation 3% council tax increase with the additional money raised going towards play areas, children’s holiday play schemes, improved street cleaning and a total of £157,000 over the next three years allocated to area committees according to levels of social deprivation.

Last year the IWCA managed to persuade the council to agree to distribute almost £400,000 of funding for refurbishing play areas according to a similar formula that favours the most deprived areas.

Lee Cole commented, ‘It is an important plank of IWCA policy to ensure that any council tax increases are accompanied by a redistribution of funds from privileged areas to working class estates.’

However, the Labour–Green proposals, while having more money to play with, didn’t have room for the IWCA’s social deprivation funding. As an afterthought, Labour took up the IWCA idea, presenting it as its own in a separate amendment to the budget.

But instead of agreeing to fund this from the hefty council tax increase, Labour insisted on obtaining the required sum through a saving made by removing the planning function from area committees. Consequently the amendment was defeated, despite IWCA support.

According to Cllr Craft, ‘Labour must have known that taking planning out of the area committees would be unacceptable to the Greens and Lib Dems as they were dead against this last year so it was entirely predictable they would vote the whole amendment down, including the measures to promote social justice.’

Labour showed its true colours when the IWCA seized another opportunity to redistribute funds to deprived areas. A Green amendment to the capital budget proposed raising £100,000 by selling the Lord Mayor’s ‘FC 1’ number plate and allocating half of this money for capital spending by area committees.

The IWCA persuaded the Greens to modify the amendment so that the £50,000 allocated to area committees would be weighted according to levels of social deprivation. With the backing of both the IWCA and the Greens, this measure only required Labour’s support to go through.

However, Labour joined forces with the Lib Dems for the first time that evening to vote down the amendment. Jericho Labour councillor Colin Cook stood up to say only that the amendment was ‘a bad idea’. When called on to explain why, he and his fellow Labour councillors refused to speak.

Stuart Craft said, ‘Either Labour is more concerned with spiting the IWCA than looking after the people of this city or it actively opposes redistribution to working class areas. I can see no other reason for its behaviour. Either way it’s Oxford’s working class that has lost out.’

Labour’s budget: more spin than substance

Other Labour budget measures appeared to be more spin than substance.

£40,000 was set aside for refuse ‘hit squads’ but at the same time Labour didn’t challenge the £70,000 ‘efficiency savings’ in street cleansing included in the budget by the Lib Dems. This means there will be £30,000 less each year for cleaning up the rubbish that gets strewn around after bin collection day.

In contrast, the IWCA budget proposed reversing the cuts to street cleansing and ploughing any savings made through increased efficiency back into the service in order to tackle the worst-affected areas.

‘When wages and employer contributions are taken into account,’ said Lee Cole, ‘Labour’s money for refuse “hit squads” won’t even provide two people to cover the entire city. It’s hard to see that making any difference, except perhaps in Labour Party propaganda.’

The Labour budget also included £100,000 of funding for Peers Sports Centre, which is due to close next year when Peers School is replaced by an Academy—a New Labour initiative that is backed by almost all the Labour city councillors.

Stuart Craft commented, ‘We are not happy with the closure of the sports centre, which is a well-used and popular facility, but Labour surrendered this when they decided to promote an Academy for Peers. Now they are pumping money into a centre with no long-term future. It looks as if this is simply about narrow electoral calculations, so that Lord Mayor John Tanner can hold onto his Littlemore seat.’

Privatisation of leisure services

While eager to throw good money after bad in the case of Peers Sports Centre, Labour seemed happy enough for Leisure services in the rest of the city to be privatised in order to make tax savings. This measure was included in the Lib Dem administration’s original budget despite the fact it had been soundly defeated at last year’s budget meeting.

This time, however, the IWCA was the only party to draw attention to the fact that this had crept back into the budget and argue that it should be reversed.

Lee Cole said, ‘It comes as no surprise that Labour councillors are now in step with their leader Gordon Brown, who introduced the tax incentives for the privatisation of council services that make this so attractive.’

‘However’, he continued, ‘savings can and should come from efficiencies made in Leisure. The responsibility for improving leisure services lies with the council itself. Democratic accountability shouldn’t be surrendered to an external provider. Outsourcing council departments risks incurring high-cost and poor-quality public services in the future. By then it will be too late.’