Wokingham council Tory cuts for 1.9%

Wokingham Tory Council are recommending a 1.9% council tax increase, but with over 150 redundancies, many in front line services. Mrs Law, Chief Executive of Wokingham Borough Council told the Reading Post on Wednesday 17.02.2010 that "the council had not yet decided which departments the redundancies would come from". Sounds familiar doesn't it.At least the Tories in Wokingham have attempted to put some sort of budget together, although the good people of Wokingham may not agree with me and live to regret it as widespread privatisation takes place which would mean a loss of accountability and ownership of services.

Meanwhile I expect Reading Tories to continue to just state like a parrot that they only want a zero percent council tax increase. The question is with only one seat less than Labour shouldn't they be presenting an alternative budget to the council next week if they are serious about taking control in only 8 weeks time. Are they hiding something that they cannot tell the electorate? or are they just plain incapable of forming a budget after years in the wilderness in Reading they just don't know how to run a council. Either way they just cannot be trusted to run Reading as they may want a zero percent increase but they have to claw the money back somewhere else which will cost the tax payer even more money.

Compare the debacle of a Tory cuts budget with the Leader of Reading Borough Council, Jo Lovelock's statement of proposing to add £5.9 million to protect the elderly and young people. In a minority administration it is paramount that a transparent budget is presented next Tuesday for cross party support and we have done this by announcing many changes and savings to the council and the public since last September.

There are no surprises or hidden tricks in our proposals and I think Reading residents would want the parties to take a serious look at all budgets presented on Tuesday and to come to a good compromise to ensure Reading continues to run. Jo Lovelock and Tony Page have written to and met with other party leaders to attempt to avoid the charade of last year. We don't expect political parties to break their principles but to look at ways of forming a budget. If the parties have commitments and principles then have the decency to put them in a budget proposal so the public can scrutinize them and not hide behind slogans.