The Leader of Stockport Labour Group has attacked the 2015-16 Council budget, saying that the Lib Dem-run Authority has failed to effectively reform services and that a proposed outcomes-based approach is too little action, too late.
Speaking at the Council budget meeting on 26th February, Cllr Alex Ganotis said ‘This budget represents an unnecessary risk which the Council wouldn’t be taking had the Lib Dems been more proactive over the last 4 years. Other Councils in Greater Manchester have transformed services since 2010, planning for what they knew were difficult times ahead.’
By March 2017, cuts to Stockport Council will have been an enormous £93.3 million over 6 years. Despite this, a December 2014 Liberal Democrat Executive meeting signed off on the latest major changes to Council services in less than 5 minutes. Those changes will see a further £38.6 million cut from the budget over the next 2 years.
Cllr Ganotis highlighted a lack of urgency and foresight amongst the Liberal Democrats, saying that the budget is ‘essentially a wish list of how the Council would like to save money, but the work simply hasn’t been done on how to achieve what has been promised.
‘The next two years are going to see a £20 million cut to Health and Social Care and a £6 million cut to support for children and their families. It is hard to see how this can be achieved, with much of the budget based on assumptions about behavioural change and reducing demand, and I think we all fear that it will lead to even deeper cuts to the frontline.’
Cuts to Northern Councils have been disproportionately large since the Coalition Government came to power. Stockport’s Liberal Democrats are strongly supportive of the Government and since April 2011 their unfair cuts have led to 956 job losses in the borough, almost 25% of the total workforce.