The monstrous meeting

We had a five hour Budget meeting yesterday - no breaks, so great discomfort. And the Council Chamber gets extremely cold. We have the bizarre spectacle of members wearing jumpers or the more discreet with thermal underwear. Well that is the norm for one 'lady member' - she always seem to turn up as if she's just come in from the garden - and seems very anxious to get back there as soon as possible.

As usual all the running was made by the Opposition parties (well that's us (Labour) and the Conservative'). Retiring to his previous idleness and indolence, the Brilliant Comrade, the so-called’ Leader of The Care in the Community Group’, hit on the clever expeditious wheeze of saying that he would have said what Rene K and I said , but as we’d said it first, he wouldn’t repeat it! Too idle even to bother to plagiarise. He even had the effrontery to describe RK and myself as his “fellow Leaders” (Oh, the shame. I'm not his fellow anything). He tried to explain the absence of an amendment by saying he didn’t know what figures to ask for, so didn’t know what to change – or something like that. To be honest it didn’t make a great deal of sense. But then he rarely does (and didn’t even when a member of our Group, or perhaps that should be, especially when he was a member of our Group!). I did like RK’s riposte when the GC said that he wasn’t a Conservative, “No, but you look like one!”


The Admin lot just sat there like a load of over-stuffed (with the SRA sauce) lemons. Not a bleat out of any of them. But the intellectual wing still found it hard to take. The ex-lefty, nationalist ‘two-dinners’ Morgan, stormed out of the Chamber at one point screaming, “I’m not staying here to listen to that crap!” – and went off for a nice restful cup of tea and a couple of kilos of biscuits. After all he had to get his energy up for his usual “I move the question be put” intervention – which sadly never actually came.

(It’s going to be interesting when the 1st April comes and all the vice-Chair SRAs disappear – whilst the Sage of Cwmbrwla goes up by £10k a year to £57k (I think),whilst his Cabinet colleagues trouser an additional £4k. My SRA goes down by £17 (no ‘k’) a year. I’m not jealous, really I’m not. (Even though I do more work than most of the Cabinet – and seem to take more responsibility than they are prepared to do.) But I’m sure that there might be a bit more competition for the SRAs that remain).

I thought the quality of the contributions from the Opposition was very high. I know that we in Labour had put in a tremendous amount of time and energy into researching the budget lines and working on our amendments. We did at least get a credit from Mike Day, who said we get a good job of being an Opposition. Thanks, Mike, much appreciated.

Nice Stuart Rice floundered about trying to find an excuse for their financial mismanagement. He never refuted any of the figures that I had put forward – he couldn’t as he knew where I’d got them from and that they were correct. (Even Wackie Blackie (that’s a reference to his being a Scouser like me, rather than any recreational substance) couldn’t do it on his blog. Although I confess that I gave up halfway through out of sheer boredom). Nice Rice made me laugh, when he said that there was some good news and then announced that the Budget balanced! This provoked The Sage to cry out that it didn’t need to…which will probably be news to the Finance Director and the District Auditor.

Nicey Ricey then started out on some wander around the UK, pointing out Authorities that were in deeper financial doo-doo than here – which prompted one wag to point out that they were nearly all run by Liberal Democrats! However, the best crack of the night came in response to a further traipse around the world by the Council Leader, who when he arrived at Canada, waving a picture of the Lord Mayor and myself at some Haiti fundraiser (no, I don’t either) prompted my, normally quiet, ward colleague Barbara Hynes to shout out “this is about Swansea not Canada”. Himself had the grace to look abashed and quickly moved on.

He and his cronies must have been shocked by the vehemence of the opposition from the public benches, which prompted one to retort, “I’m not going to vote for you lot again”. Let’s hope so.

With the ‘named votes’ (how councillors vote is recorded by name) we got, it will impossible for any of the Administration to hide behind some excuse or other. Save for Audrey Clement who left the meeting early – and our Dennis James who was ill.

Now the game continues with this information finding its way into our leaflets etc. Never seems to end. Ah well, I shouldn’t have joined, should I?

Ignorance & irresponsibility

I was asked by the EPost to respond to a demand for an apology from Chris Holley about some alleged slight about his competence. (I would like to point out that it wasn’t alleged it was quite, quite explicit, and it most certainly wasn’t ‘slight’.) I couldn’t have the whole press release but I did get the quotes, which read as if they came from the great man himself.

“Councillor Chris Holley, Leader of the City and County of Swansea said “When I pointed out that our Country’s lack of finance is the responsibility of the Labour Party in Westminster not the controlling banking sector, there was total denial that any of the problems in Local Government were down the actions of their political party.

Councillor Chris Holley said “The unions are to join with us to call for fair funding for Local Government and call on Welsh Assembly Government and Westminster to make sure we have the funding to keep services going and stop the job losses”.”

I responded:

“Cllr Phillips said, “Here he goes again. Chris Holley must be getting really desperate to claim that the international financial crisis is nothing to do with the banks irresponsibility, but wholly the fault of Labour in Westminster. With such a level of ignorance it’s hardly surprising that Swansea is in such a mess. Of course, I can see why he would want to side with the banks as they have a great deal in common – trousering large salaries for incompetence and total financial irresponsibility coupled with an expectation of someone else to pick up the tab.

Cllr Phillips said, “He might not like it, but I do not apologise for telling the truth, that the serious financial situation is made worse in Swansea by the wild ‘borrow & spend’ plans of his Administration. It’s very worrying that he appears not know that you cannot live on credit forever, and that at some point his ‘friends’ in the banks will want their money back with interest”.

The full exchange will appear in tomorrow's EPost - I will read it with interest.

Now we know

At last night’s 5 hour noisy budget meeting Labour councillors proposed some wide ranging amendments that would have not only kept the Tennis Centre open but avoided teacher redundancies.

Swansea Labour Leader, Cllr David Phillips said, “We presented carefully thought out and considered amendments. It’s disappointing that they were rejected out of hand on a block vote by the Lib-Dems/Independent councillors”.

The amendments not only funded the Teachers Pay settlement in full, but reversed the charge for musical instruments and the cut in weekly black bag collection, kept all street lights on and increased the replacement of faulty street lights. The proposals had been cleared with both the Director of Education and the Council’s Finance Director.

Cllr Phillips said, “Chris Holley and his Finance Cabinet Member had no answers, and made no attempt to answer for their catalogue of financial mismanagement, except bluster and finger-pointing. Having ruined Social Services by years of under-investment they had no choice but the knee-jerk reaction of raiding the Education budget”.

He said, “The hollowness of the claims of the so-called Independents to ‘independence’ was demonstrated beyond doubt last night, as they all voted on-bloc for this regressive and reactionary budget”.

Labour councillors obtained ‘named votes’ for all the budget amendments, in which a record is taken of how councillors actually voted on any particular issue. The Minutes of all council meeting are posted on Swansea Council’s website.

Cllr Phillips said, “The Lib-Dems and Independents won’t be able to hide how they voted. The people of Swansea will be able to see what their ward councillor actually did – and compare that to what they say they did, These councillors will have to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions.”

Cllr Phillips was especially critical of the sole Plaid Cymru councillor, Darren Price, who works for the Plaid AM, Dr Dai Lloyd. Cllr Phillips said, “Dai Lloyd had his picture in the paper supporting the Tennis Centre – but when it came down to it, Cllr Price voted with the Lib-Dems to shut it. This is just blatant hypocrisy”. He said, “This Administration is completely out of touch with the people of Swansea – but still expects them to pick up the tab for their expensive mistakes. They are going to get a rude awakening”.

Labour's Budget Amendments

Labour’s amendment details are as follows (I apologise but of necessity they look a bit ‘anoraky’ - and I find I am unable to post the original table - so the alignement is a bit off, Sorry).
The second one perhaps looks a mite complicated. Both we agreed as acceptable amendments by the Finance Director and the second as a potential way forward. It can be seen from both what the Labour Group’s intentions were.

The first is fairly self-explanatory. We proposed


Retain Tennis Centre *                    £   50,000
Retain weekly black bag collection       150,000
200 extra grit bins *                            50,000
Keep Street lights on                          100,000
Additional street light replacement *    150,000
Total                                                 500,000


Financed by reducing Contingency Fund 500,000

* One-year non-recurring items only

The second looks a bit more complicated (and it is) but it works. The intention was to get sufficient money freed up to fund the Teacher’s pay settlement in full.

Teachers Pay Settlement             £ 2,430,000
Musical Instrument Loan                     20,000
Total                                            2,450,000
Financed by
SEN *                                                          £667,000
SRA – Pres. Officer/Deputy Pres                       16,200
Reduce Cabinet Portfolios -4                            64,836
Swansea Futures                                             79,000
Communications                                            100,000
Research & Info (Hd Infom. Cst Serv)              24,000
Contingency Fund                                          500,000
Teachers Redundancy (caveat)**               1,000,000
Total                                                          2,451,000
Balance 1,000

* Schools have to reduce demand for 1-2-1
**Schools have to sign up to redeployment.

2010 Budget - What I said

My hanky is damp with all the sobbing of Cllr Rice’s woes. He blames someone – anyone – else, he doesn’t care. But this just won’t wash. You’ve been here for six years now – you should grow up and accept the responsibility of your actions.


There is no doubt that Swansea Council is in deep financial trouble with nearly all services facing drastic cut-backs. But this is not the fault of the Welsh Assembly, which has provided over £5million extra. This desperate situation is the result of your Administration’s ‘borrow and spend’ plans, where you have placed vanity projects over the needs of ordinary people for essential services. You could have avoided this catastrophe – because that is what it is - if you had made better choices.


You cannot continue to max out the Council’s credit card – without there being consequences. And those chickens have now come home to roost.

We have a financial black hole of £17m – which will grow over the next three/four years to £53million – that’s a 200% increase. So that’s another 1,500 to 2,000 extra staff to be made redundant; tennis players deprived of facilities (and we will be proposing an amendment that will save the Tennis Centre), poorer children having to pay for musical instruments, elderly deprived of respite care, city centre residents having to pay to park in their own streets - when visitors can park for free, libraries closed, teachers being made redundant and above all our children’s future being sold off to pay for your incompetence and weak unfocused leadership. You are very good at always seeking someone else to blame – but what is true is that it is others who have to pay for your mistakes.


You should have looked to the private sector solution for delivering the LC2, buses that people needed, not the derided and largely empty ‘purple whale’. We have aspirations to be a major European city – we are certainly unique in one aspect, our train and bus stations are a mile apart. The Library and Call Centre (well as much of it as we have got) are welcome facilities – but in entirely the wrong place and with a funding deficit to renovate St David's still being required. You inherited an outstanding Social Services department and ruined it by failing to invest adequately. The intervention in Children’s Services mess was inevitable.


You have consistently failed on project and financial management – you scrapped Labour’s stringent financial controls that I introduced (the Budget Prioritisation programme) – replacing it with a wish and a prayer, and ignored the concerns of your own officers, because you knew that many of your projects would not stand proper scrutiny.


You have consistently wasted money, £83million on Service@Swansea – over budget and with little to show for it and none of the £26million promised savings, the Civic Centre more than twice its original budget plus huge sums being spent on staff relocations, the LC2 over budget, you have frittered away £68 million in asset sales to cover failures in leadership and with what to show for it?, and you cannot now borrow anymore money, so Qed 2020 is dead in the water - and on and sadly on.


Yes the current financial outlook is bleak but we believe that better choices in these areas would have strengthened Swansea’s ability to withstand the current problems, not only saving over £100million capital but providing an additional £15+ million to invest in services now.


Times are tough and you have been reckless with the assets of the people of Swansea, your decision making has been slow, reactionary and often wrong. I always knew that the price for your rule would be high. Sadly even my fears fell well short of how badly you’ve failed.


This Budget is a shaming indictment of your management and the people of Swansea can see what you get from Lib-Dem/Independent rule – very little expect the bill! This budget should be roundly rejected.


I give notice Presiding Officer that we will be moving two amendments to this budget at the appropriate time.

Life is hard – background to the previous post

In a sign about how seriously things have changed (and how seriously the Evening Post is taking the consequences of the financial mess – perhaps not surprising given the public furore and published website reactions) for the first time, I was asked to write a piece for their ‘Opinion’ section on the editorial pages saying what ‘Labour would do’ if this was our budget.

However, I had to explain that it wasn’t as simple as that. It’s very difficult for an Opposition party (in local government at any rate) to produce a proper alternative budget – we have neither the physical resources nor the access to the accountants to do the number crunching or the legal advice.


I also had to point out that Labour wouldn’t have been ‘here’ in the first place. Whilst there is no doubt that local government across the UK faces a dire economic situation, the position in Swansea is made so much worse by the consequences (and costs) of the decisions made by the Lib-Dem/Independent coalition led (sic) by Chris Holley.


Their ‘borrow & spend’ philosophy (‘maxing out the credit card’ as I have previously described it) has been ruinous. Swansea cannot borrow any more money until it repays a large chunk of what it already owes and the repayment costs of which are crippling. My personal view was that the Lib-Dems/Independents had adopted a sort of ‘DFS two years free credit’ idea, get the goodies now but pay for it after the (2008) election. And as they didn’t expect to win, they didn’t expect it to be their problem anyway.


As the article makes clear, Labour would have done it differently. The figures are all correct and were provided by Council officers. You will see that they are eye-wateringly large.


One of the big items in the Administration’s budget strategy is their decision to renew the Contingency Fund, an idea with which Labour profoundly disagrees. This is set at £10million and its redirection to specific services would be a useful source of funds. However, it’s clear from our continuing discussions with Council officers that our ability to propose radical budget alternatives based on this Fund is seriously curtailed, as any proposal based on a significant reduction in the fund would be ruled out of order. We are still looking for other room to manoeuvre, but as I said in the opening, this is very difficult with the resources at our disposal and officers can hardly be expected to assist us in demolishing their own strategy!


What’s also clear is that Qed 2020 (the education improvement programme) is dead in the water. No capital budget provision been made and it can only proceed if WAG put up the money. This is not assured. In any event, all future grant schemes will require a 20% contribution from the local authority. This contribution will have to be unsecured borrowing and must be underwritten by a disposal of education land that will repay the borrowing (see my comment on borrowing above). Holley and his mates will be required to submit a robust business case, showing the land, value and disposal dates etc, all agreed in advance or the scheme will not be allowed to proceed. As I say, it’s dead in the water.

The reports also make clear that the shiny new Quadrant Bus Station is already tarnished –and it isn’t even built yet! Due to various on site problems (the statutory undertakers (Gas, Water etc) not actually knowing where their underground services were, design problems – it wasn’t high enough to accommodate the shops and so forth) it is suggested that the funding timetable may have been put at risk – and some of this may fall back on the Authority. Doubt is also cast on the start of the major £9million refurbishment of the Glyn Vivian Art Gallery. Despite all the excited press announcements of the wonders of the project and the imminent planned years long close-down, it seems that the scheme is light by around £3million. It’s been made clear that it won’t start until this gap has been firmly closed – either by finding further monies (hard) or cutting back on the actual work, which could put some of the grants already received at risk.


At a recent Scrutiny Board meeting, the Finance Cabinet Member, the nice Mr Rice, tried vainly to keep the Qed 2020 ship afloat, and had no real answers as to why the Glyn Vivian had been so loudly announced as starting, when the funding wasn’t complete and the total silence on the problems with the Quadrant. That’s open, transparent and democratic government for you, well the Lib-Dem version.


Meanwhile, he’s closing the Tennis Centre (£50,000), taking £40 grand off Cefn Hengoed Leisure Centre and (a really cheap one this) introducing a £10 per session charge to kids for the use of musical instruments in music lessons – nice egalitarian measure that one.


Makes you wonder really. We’ve had Cleggy in the EPost telling us how they’d run the country and Kirsty why we should all vote Labour (sorry Lib-Dem). Run the country – they can’t even run the city! Or is there an ‘i’ missing? I’m trying to remember that crack about whelk stalls – but it’s probably a cliché?

What Labour would do (or would have done).

I attach below the ‘Opinion’ piece that will appear in tomorrow’s EPost.

I apologise for the ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ character of this post. Some may have seen this up the other day, briefly. I posted it Tuesday as it was slated to appear Wednesday. However, immediately after I’d put it up, I learnt that its publication was to be delayed. As I didn’t want to upset the EPost, who had ‘commissioned’ it, by publishing it in advance of them, I took it down until it was decided when it would run. It will now be in tomorrow’s edition (which has now ‘gone to bed’). So here it is again (it had to be edited down to 500 words or thereabouts). Sorry for any confusion.

The figures are all correct and were provided by the Authority's officers (they will appear in answers to Councilor Questions in the agenda for the regular Council meeting, that will be published on Friday).

Swansea Council is in deep financial trouble with nearly all services facing drastic cut-backs. But this is not the fault of the Welsh Assembly, which has provided over £5million extra. Swansea’s desperate situation is the result of the Lib-Dem/Independent Administration’s ‘borrow and spend’ plans, placing vanity projects over the needs of ordinary people for essential services. The resulting catastrophic financial mess would have been avoided had better choices been made.
 
Swansea Labour would have done things differently. We would have pursued a private sector solution to the LC2, delivering a new Leisure Centre at nil cost, as we did with the Liberty Stadium. We would have introduced more efficient management arrangements at both the LC2 and the Stadium, providing savings of over £4.5 million per year.
 
Swansea Labour did not support the costly Service@Swansea IT project, whose £83m cost has produced little of the anticipated £26million savings. We would have found realistic, cost effective ways of replacing the IT systems with proper project controls, saving up to£1.2m a year, plus a further £8m due to Cap Gemini.
 
Labour’s priority was for a modern Bus Station, providing bus services that people wanted, not a ‘bendy-bus’. Labour would have redirected the £13.5million costs towards providing a bus/rail interchange at the railway station and redeveloping High St/Dyfatty, avoiding years of disruption in the city centre and the closure of many businesses; allowing the £12.5million cost (and rising) of the Quadrant Bus Station to be refocused.
 
We recognise that the Civic Centre and new Library are popular, however, their construction costs were allowed to double to £13million+. Swansea Labour intended providing these facilities in the St David’s Centre, avoiding staff relocation costs of at least £500,000 and £300,000 annual rental.
 
Labour would have continued to invest properly in Social Services, securing its 2004 position, avoiding our Children’s services being taken into ‘special measures’. We would not have spent £2m to simply move a Children’s home from West Cross to Blaenymaes.
 
The £68 million received from asset disposals would have been invested in Swansea’s future, rather than covering failures in leadership. Labour would have restored our rigorous budgetary control systems, scrapped by the Lib-Dem Administration; improving outcomes without compromising delivery.
 
We believe that these better choices would have strengthened Swansea’s ability to withstand the current problems, not only saving over £100million capital but providing an additional £15.6million to invest in services now.
 
Swansea Labour would have invested in our children, passing on all of the increases provided by the Assembly in the last 6 years to Education and Social Services and absorbed at least some of the cost of teacher’s pay settlements.
 
We would have provided the full cost of the school rebuild at Penyrheol Comprehensive and worked with the Welsh Assembly to secure funding for a proper by-pass for the Hafod.
 
We would work with our staff, our greatest resource, to identify ways of delivering services more effectively and efficiently. We would extend recycling, introduce a sustainable road maintenance programme and create dedicated cleansing teams for all major areas of the county.
 
Labour would keep the Tennis Centre open by scrapping the Presiding & Deputy Presiding Officer posts and review the current SRA system. We would enforce Residents Parking by employing more traffic wardens.
 
Times are tough and the Lib-Dems have been reckless with the assets of the people of Swansea, their decision making has been slow, reactionary and often wrong. Swansea Labour feared that the price for Lib-Dem/Independent rule would be high. Sadly our fears fell well short of the scale of their failure. What is needed to tackle this crisis effectively is a different administration with the values, vision & determination to deliver for the people of Swansea.

Chris Holley digs in

Stung by a piece in yesterday's EPost in which John Miles accurately pointed out that Neath Port Talbot had passed on all their increase from the Welsh Assembly plus 50% of the teacher's pay settlement, Chris Holley hit back. Clearly the attacks on his Administration's financial incompetence and his weak leadership got under his considerable skin and he sent off a moan to the EPost. The Sage of Cwmbrwla claimed that, unlike him - who was nothing if not open and transparent - Labour were wrong, not telling the truth and were following a party line. He claims that if Swansea were paid the same as NPT, it would have many additional millions. He doesn't mention however, the many many millions that he has wasted - see the earlier blogpost. Oh dear, oh dear. I'll leave it to you to decide who's open and transparent etc.

I post John Miles' reply to the attack.
------------------------
Cllr John Miles, Labour’s Education spokesman said, “It’s clear the Council Leader doesn’t understand how the formula works. It’s a pity he wasn’t listening to Cllr Stuart Rice (the Finance Cabinet Member) at last week’s Cabinet meeting. If he was, he’d know that comparisons per head of the population are entirely misleading and irrelevant, as the percentage differences between the authorities are the same as last year"

He said, "The real difference between the two authorities is that NeathPort Talbot is run by Labour whilst Swansea is run by the Lib-Dems and Independents.”

Cllr Miles said, “The truth is that NeathPort Talbot has increased Education spending in line with its increase from the Assembly plus it has provided 50% of the teachers pay rise, whilst Swansea has cut Education spending by almost 1%, mainly to direct funds to Social Services. Education recently passed its Estyn inspection with flying colours whilst Social Services is in crisis, with Children’s Services in Special Measures. What Chris Holley is doing is rewarding failure and punishing success.

Cllr Miles said, “Chris Holley should remember that old political adage – ‘when you’re in a hole stop digging’.”

Haiti Appeal

In repsonse to the situation in Haiti the Labour Group has tabled the following motion to Council:

"We will all have watched the news reports of the situation in Haiti following the dreadful earthquake with increasing horror and concern. The devastation caused by this enormous earthquake on an already underdeveloped country and the impact on its people, especially children, that were already living in one of the poorest countries in the world, is difficult to comprehend.

This Council wishes to stand in solidarity with the people of Haiti and to say to the survivors “You are not alone”.

This Council therefore resolves that it will send an appropriate donation to the Disasters Emergency Committee.

It believes that all donations no matter how small will make a difference. As Mother Theresa said, “If you can’t feed a hundred people then just feed one”. This Council will therefore do what it can to promote the various means of appeal and to encourage the generosity of the people of Swansea to support the fundraising efforts".

“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give”.

Budget gauntlet thrown down

Swansea Council’s Leader was under pressure today to agree to a debate on the Council’s budget crisis.

Labour Leader, Cllr David Phillips has thrown down the gauntlet, demanding a full public debate on the crisis.

Cllr Phillips said, “Chris Holley’s live now, pay later philosophy is no substitute for proper financial management. I have been warning for years that his irresponsible policies meant ruin in the future. But it wasn’t just me, his own officers have been telling him the same thing. I take no pleasure in being right.”

Cllr Phillips suggested that the public meeting would be of great interest. “He said, “This Council mouths empty platitudes about increasing local democracy – let’s put our money where our mouth is and hold a proper public meeting, moderated by some prominent local person, the Editor of the Evening Post say, where the three Party Group Leaders can debate the issue.

He said, “Now is the time for the Leader of the Council to face his critics and explain how he has squandered the strong financial situation he inherited, to tell housing tenants, teachers, children and Council staff, where all the money has gone. And explain, if he can, why he cannot give any future assurance on jobs, housing repairs, education, care for children or respite care for the elderly.”

Budget Da Vinci conspiracy

The budget process in County Hall took a bizarre turn today when it emerged that the councillors’ copy of the Evening Post had been censored to remove all reports of Swansea Council’s budget crisis.

A copy of the Evening Post is put in the Members & visitors Lounge at County Hall every day together with the Western Mail and the Independent.

Cllr David Phillips said, “The Post has been disappearing all this week whilst the Budget stories have been running. But today takes the biscuit. The pages reporting yesterdays Cabinet Meeting and related Budget issues had been removed from the paper completely whilst the Editorial comment had been torn out. If only the budget crisis could be resolved as easily as tearing out the difficult pages!

But Cllr Phillips was determined to find out what he wasn’t supposed to know. However, when he finally got his hands on a copy, at first glance he found nothing other than the usual balanced report. He said, “But then I saw it. With the help of my Dan Brown Da Vinci Code book and a bit of advance numerology I cracked the message. It said, “Help us please, we have no idea what we are doing”.

Cllr Phillips said, “I know Chris Holley is a conspiracy theorist and loves a bit of mystery, but he really didn’t need to put it in code. Most of the people of Swansea already know he’s lost the plot!”

Game set & match for Presiding Officer?

Labour councillors today proposed a radical suggestion to help save Swansea’s threatened Tennis Centre, get rid of the Council’s Presiding Officer and Deputy in straight sets.

Swansea Council’s Labour Leader, Cllr David Phillips said, “If we scrapped the Council’s Presiding Officer and Deputy Presiding Officer, we would be able to make a substantial contribution towards keeping the Tennis Centre open”.

Labour’s proposal is to revert to the previous practice of having the Council meetings chaired by the Lord Mayor and Deputy Lord Mayor.

The current Presiding Officer has been a highly controversial figure having been moved into the post when she was forced to resign from the Social Services portfolio following the failure of Children’s Services and the appointment of an external Intervention Board to drive up progress.

Cllr Phillips said, “These two posts contribute nothing of value to the smooth operation of the Council and can easily be replaced. The money saved could be put to much better use”.

Holley and Day put their heads together

Swansea Council's Lib-Dem Leadership gets detention over school budget cuts

Labour councillors strongly criticised the Lib-Dem run Swansea Council today for its mismanagement of school finances.

Swansea Labour Leader, Cllr David Phillips said, “Cllr Mike Day is being disingenuous when he says that some schools “may choose to cut teaching staff”. Giving less than 1% increase, whilst at the same time passing on the teachers pay award, pay and prices and other commitments means the average shortfall in schools is 4.7%. Headteachers have no other option but to cut staff. His sums just don’t add up. He and Chris Holley clearly need extra lessons in arithmetic.”

At a meeting with Chairs of Governors on Tuesday, the Director of Education confirmed the drastic cuts that were being made in education spending and confirmed that with the expected 200+% increase in the financial deficit over the next four years the situation was unlikely to get better. No members of the Lib-Dem run Cabinet attended the meeting.

Labours Education spokesman, Cllr John Miles, criticised the Council Leader and Cabinet Member for failing to attend a meeting Cllr Mike who was present, said, “It was regrettable, but not surprising, that both Cllr Day and the Council Leader failed to attend. They would have some serious explaining to do if they had. On information we have gathered so far, schools are seriously talking about redundancies of at least 100 teachers and 100 support staff across the county.”

Labour allege that losses of this scale will inevitably, and unavoidably, result in less teaching time, increased class sizes, mixed age classes, reduced one-to-one tuition and extra support for literacy and numeracy. These in turn could lead to a reduction in school hours, even half or full day closures and children sent home in the event of unplanned absence such as staff sickness.

Cllr Miles said, “Any of these scenarios will have a serious impact on the delivery of the curriculum and inevitable disruption to parents arrangements for their children and their available working hours.”

Cllr Miles said, “This cannot be blamed on the Welsh Assembly. NeathPort Talbot have passed on the full 1.7% increase they received for education in their Assembly settlement, as well as partially funding the teachers pay award. Swansea is already spending £330 less per child than NeathPort Talbot, this gap could now rise to £400. Swansea’s children should not have to pay the price for Cllr Holley’s irresponsible financial mismanagement”.

Maxed out credit card and tired old clichés - full PR

Labour Councillors attacked the Lib Dem led Administration, dismissing claims that the drastic budget cuts were entirely the result of reduced Welsh Assembly Government funding.


Labour’s Finance spokesman, Cllr Mike Hedges, who is the prospective Assembly candidate for Swansea East said, “This is the same tired old cliché that Cllr Holley repeats whenever he gets into difficulty. It is simply not credible. Times are hard, but Swansea is in the state it’s in, as a direct result of Cllr Holley’s incompetence and weak leadership. Instead of always seeking to blame someone else he should look to his own Administration’s disastrous management. A failed IT project, cuts across Education, a failing social services and the closure of vital respite care for the elderly and children’s homes. These are all down to Lib-Dem mismanagement and incompetence. The blame game won't wash. These are their decisions, their choices and their mistakes. And it will be their legacy".

Swansea has received a 1.9% increase from the Welsh Assembly, which equates to an additional £8million.

Labour Group Leader Cllr David Phillips said, “Chris Holley maxed out the Council’s credit card with no idea how it was to be repaid. He just hoped that something would turn up. It hasn’t. I have been warning for years that the ruinous borrowing and spending of this Lib-Dem led Administration would have to be paid for sometime. And that time is now.”

Social Services is one of the ‘big winners’ in the budget squeeze getting an additional £8.8 million, largely at the expense of Education, who will have to swallow a 0.9% real terms decrease. In addition, the Lib-Dem led Administration has refused to fund the Teachers pay increase or pay and price increases, passing these directly to schools to be funded out of their budget. Some schools are alleging that they may have to go to a four day week or even send children home because there will be insufficient teachers.

Cllr Hedges said, “Welsh schoolchildren are already £527 behind their English counterparts, these cuts will only make this situation worse. Having ruined one of the best Social Service departments in Wales, (and with our Children and Family Services in Special Measures) they are now having to invest heavily to bring it back up to standard. It’s a sad irony that it’s our children who are having to foot the bill for this. NeathPort Talbot for example have passed on the WAG increase directly and in full to schools.”

The Authority has earmarked almost all the Assembly increase for a special Contingency Fund. Cllr Hedges said, “I was not elected to put money in the bank. It should be being spent on services.”

The Lib-Dem led Administration had been planning on considerable savings coming from the controversial IT programme Service@Swansea. Instead, they are having to invest considerable further money into the programme to keep it going.

Cllr Hedges said, “We have seen nothing of the promised savings from the disastrous IT programme. I was warning from the outset that it was unrealistically ambitious. But Cllr Holley wouldn’t listen and just carried on regardless.”

Cllr Phillips said, “Cllr Holley has disposed of over £60m of Council assets in order to fund and cover-up their failures. What have the people of Swansea got to show for this? Nothing but a bigger financial black hole!"

Commenting on the planned 500-750 redundancies, Cllr Phillips said, “It’s a clear indication of the seriousness of the situation when we learn that senior staff will be going as well. But you can bet that their severance terms will be a lot more generous than the ordinary workers. Perhaps we’ll even see them back as consultants?”

He said, "However, is Cllr Holley going to apply the same principles to his Cabinet. With so many services being so drastically cut back, is there a need for a Cabinet of the same size. Will he be cutting back on his Cabinet posts? Given their abysmal performance, no-one would notice if many of them stayed at home!”.