We have always made the rule that this blog should not be used for the sort of political posturing that certain other blogs in Reading are, as it is for information on our work as ward councillors. As our council work for each of the last two evenings has been spent in the Civic until gone 11pm, while a budget has failed to be set, it is now right to set out some thoughts on the situation.
Labour's budget set out a Council Tax increase of 4.24%, with only one new spending proposal (a long-overdue plan to increase funding on enforcement on private rented housing), and taking £1.4m from Council reserves to pay for it all, with the balances run down to the bare bones. We could not support the overall package as it left the cupboard bare, at a time when the economy is uncertain and we know next year's Government grant for local councils is rotten; it will mean for sure, we fear, that there will be nowhere to go next year other than big Council Tax rises and cuts in services. With Labour going quickly backwards in Reading, we presume they calculate they won't have to take those decisions.
We tried to amend the budget by making £780,000 worth of savings, costed in advance with the help of officers; making targeted service improvements (on environmental enforcement, reducing charges for bulky waste collection, integrated promotion of Neighbourhood Policing so residents can actually hear from their local teams, and road safety), reducing the Council Tax increase to 3.99% and leaving some balances to cope with the economic storms. We also wanted a review group to tackle the difficult issues in the budget, ensuring that it wasn't just Labour who could access information so this situation couldn't happen again. Like the Labour Budget, this was thrown out by the other parties.
The Conservatives failed to present a Budget amendment.
On the first night (Tuesday) after both proposals were voted down, group leaders were sent into huddles. Three-party talks lasted barely a minute after the Conservatives withdrew; Labour discussed our amendment but were unable to commit to the savings we were after (claiming that any savings meant cuts in services: untrue, unless you describe items like sandwiches for Councillors - part of our savings package - as a cut!).
Then something extraordinary happened. After we gave a clear steer as to the basis of a compromise, Labour after a group meeting tried to back out of any compromise at all. Presumably their group thought that other parties would cave in, or they didn't understood they needed support to get their budget through. I left them with a clear message that we wanted to see a new proposal to be discussed before the meeting reconvened.
Yesterday (Wednesday) officers made themselves available for discussions. I took a half day from work and tried to work up alternatives, although it quickly became apparent that officers would find processing further late budget proposals difficult. Although there was some conversation with the Conservatives (who remained unwilling to vote for any version of our proposals and were not tabling an amendment based on their own), nothing was heard from Labour by phone or email until after 5pm. The draft amendment sent by email was another attempt by Labour to water down our proposals still further, to the point where we felt it was undeliverable. Unfortunately, Labour chose not to formally discuss this with us before the meeting, but merely moved their proposal as an amendment. The silence spoke volumes about Labour's willingness to agree a budget.
When it was clear this was to be voted down, the Council adjourned and we went in for more negotiation. Labour remained unwilling to make savings, even after alternative approaches were discussed. They failed to understand our concerns about deliverability, although the review of Fees and Charges agreed at last year's Budget meeting never happened due to Labour reprioritising officers' time, and none of us felt that we could trust Labour to turn a vague aspiration into a clear commitment.
Senior Conservatives asked why we were not prepared to sign up to a Labour proposal which they had no intention of supporting. How bizarre.
We made one final effort to try and get agreement. In order that Council Tax bills could be printed as planned without setting up the Council for further costs, we sought to get Labour to commit to the savings in the course of the financial year as part of our cross-party budget review; savings which the Budget papers stated twice needed to be made anyway to bring in a saving of over £8 million needed over the year. Labour considered this for barely a minute, before deciding it was better to waste £60,000 of taxpayers' money on cancelling the printing of the bills, than commit to savings which their own budget book committed them to anyway.
So deadlock is the depressing outcome. Labour are clearly stuck in a Stalinist mindset with an inability to compromise.
Until the Conservatives propose a costed amendment to the budget, their negativity does little other than remind people, perversely, of the antics of Militant politicians in the dark days of the early 1980s.
Somehow, a budget has to be set among all this. I shall comment on the politics of it all elsewhere.

