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.