Report from the Wednesday 23rd Budget Meeting

This is intended as a straight record of what I saw, please add to it if you were there so we get a fuller and more rounded picture of the event.

Around 130 people turned up at some time between 6 and 6.45pm outside Bury Town Hall to protest against the cuts.    The major groups represented were ourselves (with two banners), a substantial (and noisy) presence from the Youth Parliament, the UNITE union and a number of members of UNISON.    Two people (including me) were taking names of new members of the Action Group.   I signed up 16 new members.  We were at the Manchester road entrance and were encouraged by supportive toots from horns from passing traffic.   

There seemed to be an unnecessarily large police presence, largely occupied in ushering us to the right entrance or in assisting ushers to protect the entrance to the Town Hall. 

There was clearly another way in to the Town Hall open for councillors and we saw no Lib Dem or Tory councillors and therefore could not lobby them.   The Labour group plus MP Ivan Lewis turned up (I guess around 6.25) and briefly addressed us through a loud hailer expressing their support before mingling with the protesters.   The Bury Times political correspondent was there.

Tickets for the 70 places for the public galleries were soon exhausted and many of our activists did not get one.   Some argued that this was undemocratic and urged the police and town hall staff to let them in.   

At around 7.45 the councillors went in and those with tickets followed and were ushered into the public gallery.     I understand that the protest outside continued for some time.

The Council Meeting 7 – 10.30pm

I certainly don’t know everybody in our group, but I was surprised how few people from the group I recognised in the Council Chamber public gallery.   There was a substantial and noisy contingent from the Labour Party grouped around Ivan Lewis.   The council had used a minor error in our submission of the questions to exclude them from consideration.   Four other public questions were put and were answered in formal way with no follow-up questions as we had anticipated.

The Budget

During the budget presentation the Tory Group unveiled their decision to save home to school transport for pupils with special needs and claimed that this demonstrated that Bury was ‘a listening council’.    Mike Connolly for the Labour Group said that, though the national economic picture meant that cuts were inevitable, these were ‘the wrong cuts at the wrong time’. There was a long, rambling partisan discussion, with at least as much focus on national as local politics, before amendments from Labour and Liberal groups were considered in the last 30 – 40 minutes of the meeting.

There were no proposals to set an illegal budget.   All three parties accepted that they would have to work within the national grant to Bury provided by the Coalition government.    Any cuts reversed were paid for by cuts made elsewhere.   However both parties’ amendments did appear to save frontline services at the expense of back room administrative costs.   The Labour amendment included a small contribution from cuts to councillors’ allowances.

The Labour Group’s amendments were rejected by the other two parties.   Some services saved were identical to those saved by the Lib Dems, particularly the LAP manager posts (see below).   The major distinctive proposal was to ‘Save the Youth Service’ at a cost of £800,000.   Smaller items included free collection of bulky waste, saving Radcliffe Civic Centre from privatisation, keeping Education Welfare Officers, saving School Crossing Patrols, free car parking at Castle Leisure and preserving crèches at libraries in Radcliffe and Ramsbottom.

The only controversy surrounding the alternative cuts proposals from either party was the Labour proposal to ‘make no provision for non-pay inflation’.    This saved the sum of £928,000 and was therefore essential to pay for the promise to ‘save the youth service’.  Lib Dems and Tories argued that it was an unrealistic proposal which could lead to other cuts later in the year as inflation has its inevitable effect.   

The following Lib Dem amendments were accepted by all three political groups and now form part of the budget.

• The major item concerned ‘protecting’ local area partnerships by keeping three of the current six LAP managers and ‘redesignating them into community work’ – whatever that means
• restoring community grants up to a level of £30,000 a year

Four items were specific to Prestwich:

• reversing the closure of the Longfield Suit
• Saving Sunday opening at Prestwich Library
• Removing car parking charges from Fairfax Road car park.
• Turning the Pheonix Centre in St Mary’s Park Prestwich, currently owned by the youth service into a centre for community use.

£100,000 was allocated to improve the flexibility of refuse collection.

The Tories voted for the budget as amended, Labour voted against and the Lib Dems abstained, enabling the budget to be passed by a minority Tory administration.

Bury Action Group and the Budget: some personal comments

The amendments to the budget have made little difference.    Playing about with figures within the coalition settlement cannot meet Bury’s needs.    We must continue to root out and expose the hidden details in the cuts that have just been made, fight them as they are implemented and anticipate and argue against likely future cuts. We must protest as loudly as we can locally to push our councillors to represent us to national government, not simply quietly do its bidding, and protest nationally as well. We will not have succeeded until the coalition stops making cuts.

Nevertheless these small changes illustrate the impact that protest can have.    The campaign on transport for children with special needs was the most vocal at the consultation meeting and has succeeded and we should welcome that.   Longer running campaigns on the Longfield Suite and LAPs also appear to have had some effect.   People in Prestwich will welcome the further reprieve for the Longfield Centre, the removal of car parking charges and the continued use of the Pheonix Centre.

We should regard the reduction of the cut to the service provided by LAP managers with deep suspicion.   It is not clear how three LAP managers can do the work of six.   Lib Dem publicity (eg Sedgley Ward Focus) does not mention the ‘redesignation’ of the LAP Managers ‘into community development work’.    We defended the LAP system as a limited form of local democracy and a source of support for the voluntary sector. Will this continue? We need to watch this with great care.

The Council still plans to destroy the youth service.  We need to support Jamie Walker and the Youth Parliament in fighting this.

Cuts to Rangers jobs are still planned along with other reductions in park services.  Collete Jones is well-informed about these and we can help strengthen her campaigns.

There are £3M cuts to the budget for Adult Care we need to make contacts so we can understand these and monitor them better, then publicise and challenge them.

All of this should go alongside continuing and increasing contact with Trade Unions fighting the cuts.

These are just a few of the causes we can engage with to keep our movement large, strong and inclusive.

We have a lot of forward-looking things to talk about at our organising meeting next Tuesday (7pm Met Theatre).

George Heron - Bury Action Group