Bromborough loves our library. Over two thousand people of all ages have signed a petition to save it. Other communities feel very similar: Higher Bebington, Greasby, Hoylake, Irby, Pensby, Prenton, Rock Ferry, Woodchurch and Wallasey village. They love their libraries too. And my amendment, my library amendment, means that we can save them all, at least for one year.
There’s no need for Council cuts to libraries, swimming pools and golf courses. There was no need, in my view, for a loan from the Government last year, bringing intervention that’s not welcome. These are political choices. Let me show you why.
Wirral Council‘s net income for next year is forecast to be £330 million. £163 million coming in from your council tax, £139 million from your business rates and from government grants, £28 million.
In 2010, the Government grant (without business rates) was £68 million. Nothing like the £267 million claimed in the latest lies leaflet from Labour. Even if you include the business rates then that would come to £192 million, which is £75 million less than what Labour’s leaflet is claiming.
But Tory cuts are cruel. The nerve of the leader of the Conservative Group to lecture us about how beneficial the Conservative Government has been. This Conservative Government are the ones that have judge found had made unlawful Covid contracts, fast tracked VIP lane, large proportions going to party donors. Public money going into private hands. That is what the Tories are very good at. And all the while where people are unable to visit their dying relatives in hospital, they are having parties in 10 Downing Street, laughing at us. For shame.
We councillors are elected politicians. We are elected by the public to make political choices about public money - raised from the public to be spent for public benefit.
Are your ward councillors going to vote for cuts to libraries, swimming pools and golf courses? Are they going to put Party before people? Are your councillors voting for the many or for the money?
The Council budget this year is shown by this money here. £330.
The budget proposals to be voted on today would;
Reduce Neighbourhoods by £4 million.
Reduce Resources by £1.5 million
Reduce Law & Governance by £300,000
Adult’s budget would be increased by £5 million
Increase Children’s by £0.5 million
Increase Regeneration by £1 million
That’s the effect of all the comings and goings. The physical props will be here for the rest of the meeting if you want to come and have a look.
There is a planned budget surplus of £444,000 that will keep all the libraries open until November.
The additional cost of keeping all the libraries open for a full year is about £330,000. The equivalent here of 35p. The senior officers agree that the libraries could be funded from Financial Resilience Reserve of £375,000 as a one off.
To keep Woodchurch Leisure centre running would cost the Council £400,000. Just this out of all this budget. Europa fun pool £266,000. Brackenwood Golf Club, to keep it open until September, would cost £50,000.
Where can we possibly find this total amount of £716,000? All these departments are saying ‘No, no nothing else we can give here. It’s all taken for.’
What about all the shiny investments that the Labour Cabinet made in recent years? Six of whom are still with us today. All the pet projects that they had, let’s have a look. There’s an envelope here. Wirral Growth Company, we’ve put a good £2 million into there, is there anything coming back? No, not even the external assurance reports can say we can count any money coming back in from Wirral Growth Company.
What have we got in the bank? The General Fund Balance is of £10.7 million, which needs to be increased.
In the earmarked reserves we have two types. One kind of reserve which isn’t legal to spend, because it’s for schools and other contracts, that’s £40.7 million.
But then there is £27 million of reserves, which are earmarked for certain things, but they are also legal to reallocate. They could be re-purposed. When we have asked, can we re-purpose these earmarked reserves, we’re told ‘No, we can’t. They are all earmarked for something in the past. Even the Council’s qualified auditor says there is more than £20 million in earmarked reserves that could be used “to deal with any savings shortfall”.
There is no written report, no assessment, no ranking of these earmarked reserves about why it’s more important to keep these than spend them on keeping services open.
Oh, apart from £2.5 million moving from earmarked reserves into General Fund Reserves, £0.5 million for Children’s, £0.5 million for Leisure and another £0.6 million going into waste. The waste levy increases not next year but the year after. So earmarked reserves can move around. And I’m glad to say, £375,000 has been identified that could be used to keep libraries open.
It doesn’t seem right to me that 400 people employed by Wirral Council last year were paid more than £50,000 – almost double the average salary on the Wirral. Wirral Council spent £24 million on such salaries and severance pay. The top 10 Senior Leadership Team alone cost £1.4 million. Yet they have not been able to bring forward proposals to balance the budget without cutting libraries, leisure centres and golf courses. Do you believe Wirral residents are getting
Councillors and members of the public. Another Wirral Is Possible. We can have:
Public services for everybody,
Contractors paid the Real Living Wage,
Warm homes, good schools,
Decent jobs, swimming pools,
Adult care, clean air,
Refugees welcome here.
We can have a publicly delivered National Health Service.
But we need to vote for it. Today and in elections in May.
The first amendment before you from myself is about Europa Fun Pool. It’s been turned into yet another gym. But we need not throw the towel in nor wave goodbye to fun for thousands of youngsters. The pool can at least break even during the school holidays. Leisure committee voted to reopen the fun pool as soon as Covid allows. This amendment merely asks us to re-state our intentions to Pause Re-Opening of Europa fun pool and not permanently close. Who knows, we may have councillors here next year who can find £270,000 to reopen Europa fun pool.
Secondly libraries. Officers agree we can legally vote to save all our libraries for one year. It will still keep the £3 million contingency reserve, and it’s a perfectly legal way to save our services.
Please vote these two amendments. Thank you very much.
Cllr Jo Bird Right to Reply
The figures I quote are from the audited accounts of Wirral Council. It’s all there in the public domain to see. The figures for Adult health is on page 96 of the [Council meeting] pack. Last year £113.8 million and this year £118.8 million. There is a straightforward increase, net increase to Adults.
A no cuts balance budget is possible. We have £330 million income this year. There is £29 million of usable reserves that could be repurposed. It’s not been possible to get agreement from the Section 151 officer on various proposals and maybe with time that could have come. Every couple of weeks there are more reserves that are released for various purposes, reallocated. It is possible that the committees could be looking at those areas, as and when the specific proposals come to them, in the months to come.
There has been a lot of blame game tonight. The truth of the answer is both. There is both austerity from the Conservative government that is causing cuts to Council services AND there is also bad leadership on Labour‘s part. We need to be looking at what we do about that. The proposals I’ve put before us today are legal. They create a balanced budget and reduce some of the hardship of those cuts.
There’s a kind of weird love-hate relationship going on between the Tories and the Labour Party in Wirral Council in recent months. A strange unholy alliance. But when the chips are down [heckling and laughing] when the chips are down - laugh if you like but our residents are not laughing, this is a serious matter.
When the chips are down, I’m expecting Labour and Conservative to vote FOR cuts to front line services. Let’s be clear, they’re going to vote to close our libraries when they don't have to. They're going to vote to close leisure centres when they don’t have to. They're going to vote to close services and hurt communities that we are elected to represent. The Council has enough money to keep the services open and if there was better leadership I’m sure we could do that.