People in Sefton will soon be paying more for council tax, to park their car in council-owned spaces and to visit their local leisure centre after the council’s budget plans were approved.
At a meeting of Sefton’s full council held at Bootle Town Hall last night, March 2, councillors from across the borough met to settle the budget for the coming year.
Proposals on the table included cuts to the borough’s highways budget and a large increase in spending on children’s services – with the ruling Labour group proposing a full council tax rise of 5% as well as increased fees for parking charges and at the borough’s leisure centres.
READ MORE: Mum leaves behind five children after dying in fall down stairs
Leader of the opposition and Liberal democrat leader Cllr John Pugh said his party would not be proposing any amendment to the budget this year.
He said that given the lack of detailed breakdown in budget proposals, it was “impossible” to put forward options, stating: “What we have is global savings decided by chief officers with some inputs from cabinet members quietly and unobtrusively.”
He added: “Without the right data it is a very uneven battle.”
Cllr Pugh questioned the £40m additional spend on children’s services from four years ago to the present.
He said: “These are stark, demanding figures and we should really have further investigation and more detail” but councillors “will not find the answers here tonight.”
Declaring the proposed budget a “pig in a poke”, he stated his councillors would not be voting for it.
Conservative leader Cllr Mike Prendergast said: “I’m sure in due course we’ll hear how all the problems of Sefton Council can be laid at the door of the Conservative government”, claiming the council had received “unprecedented support ” from the government.
He said “external factors” including inflation, energy price rises and the war in Ukraine were behind pressures on budgets.
Speaking on Sefton Council’s children’s services, Cllr Prendergast said there had been “10 years of failings from Labour” which he said had led to a £17m budget overspend in the department, “one of the largest” in the council’s history.
Cllr Prendergast also referred to Bootle Strand shopping centre and council companies including Sandway Homes, slamming what he described as “secrecy and lack of transparency” over decisions being made.
He said the conservative group would not be supporting the council tax rise, which he described as “masking the failings” of the Labour-run council.
Leader of the community independents group, Cllr Patrick McKinley declared his group would vote for the budget, but only if £350k of unallocated funding was earmarked for Maghull Town Council to help “mitigate” some of the pressures residents are facing due to a huge growth in house building in the area.
Leader of the council and the ruling labour group Cllr Ian Maher said there had been a “sustained attack on local government” in recent years but the council “will continue to do all we can to protect public services from the ravages”,
He said that while the budget contained no job losses or service reductions, he proposed it “with sadness”.
The conservatives proposed one amendment to the budget, suggesting councillors take a 25% pay cut to fund extra provision for care experienced children. He said the measure would show the council “could take the tough decisions” needed to improve its failing children’s services.
This was met with accusations from Cllr Maher that Cllr Prendergast was turning children’s services into a “political football” before a vote was taken.
Liberal democrats and conservatives voted in favour of the proposal while Labour councillors and independents voted against, meaning the motion failed.
On to the main budget, Liberal Democrat Cllr Simon Shaw spoke first, repeating a line of questioning about the huge increase in children’s services expenditure, which has gone up by 120% in four years.
Cllr John Fairclough said children’s services was “demand led” with a huge increase in the number of children in care in recent years.
Cllr Maher said that Liberal democrat complaints of not having enough data to make amendments was “show boating” as the budget papers had already been to scrutiny before coming to council.
He described Cllr Prendergast’s remarks as “fairytales” and said local councils were the “fabric of society in this country.”
He spoke of councils being “held to ransom” by private social work companies, feeding into the huge increase in costs for children’s services, alongside an extra 200 children in care.
A vote was then taken and with all opposition opposed, but the ruling Labour group voting in favour, the budget proposals were approved.
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