88 LibDem leaders wrote to The Times protesting about the cuts: Why wasn’t Kirsten Bayes among them?

READING & DISTRICT LABOUR PARTY MEDIA RELEASE
10 February 2011
Labour: 88 LibDem leaders wrote to The Times protesting about the cuts: Why wasn’t Kirsten Bayes among them?

88 LibDem Council and Group Leaders published a letter in The Times today attacking Conservative Communities Secretary Eric Pickles for front-loading of cuts which they say “will have an undoubted effect on all frontline council services, including care services to the most vulnerable”.

They say he is denying Councils the lead-in time to re-engineer services and the opportunity to spread the costs of downsizing over several years, which they could do at no cost to central Government, and is engaging in “gunboat diplomacy” instead of helping Councils to minimise the impact on vulnerable communities.

A copy of the letter is attached. Reading Labour Group Leader Jo Lovelock has looked through the long list of signatories and the name of Kirsten Bayes is missing.
Cllr. Lovelock, who called earlier this year for the Council’s Leadership to stand up for Reading in the face of a much worse settlement than neighbouring Councils, says: “The first signature is that of Richard Kemp, Leader of the LibDem Group on the Local Government Association, and when I challenged Cllr. Bayes about the cuts she said she had been in his office recently and declined to be specific about her conversation with him.

“But she clearly did not stay long enough to join 88 other LibDem Leaders in protesting about cuts that will hugely damage public services for the people she is supposed to represent.

“What the Leader of Portsmouth City Council, the Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council (where LibDems are also in coalition with the Tories), the LibDem Leader on Oxfordshire County Council, and many others were prepared to do, Cllr. Bayes did not have the will, or the courage, to do.

“Instead of Council Leaders standing up for Reading, as under Labour we always did, we have a Leader of the Council and Deputy Leader who are just George Osborne’s lieutenants in the Thames Valley!”

Cllr Lovelock has signed a letter from Labour Leaders urging cross party cooperation in lobbying Eric Pickles to stand up for a better deal for Local Government (also attached), which is expected to be published in The Times on 11 February.

//ENDS

For further information contact Jo Lovelock 
or R&DLP Press Officer Pete Ruhemann
For information on Reading Labour Party and its campaigns visit www.readinglabour.org.uk

Letter to The Times 10 February 2011

Sir, Local government is playing its part in tackling the country’s deficit and advancing the Coalition’s aims of localism and the Big Society. But local, and central, government are being let down by the Communities and Local Government Secretary who appears unwilling to lead the change that’s so desperately needed. Local government has made efficiency savings of 3 per cent in each of the past eight years — in stark contrast to the runaway spending of central government under the previous administration. We’ve also been planning for further saving since the true state of the economy became apparent six months ago.

What has been delivered is a difficult cuts package across all government departments but clearly the most severe is to local government. These cuts will have an undoubted impact on all frontline council services, including care services to the vulnerable.

Rather than assist the country’s recovery by making public-sector savings in a way that can protect local economies and the frontline, the cuts are so structured that they will do the opposite. The local government settlement will take a major hit in this coming financial year and further, smaller, cuts in subsequent years. This front-loading means councils do not have the lead-in time necessary to re-engineer services on a lower-cost base and ease staff cuts without forced, expensive redundancies. Inexplicably, local government is also being denied the opportunity to spread the cost of reorganisation and downsizing over several years — at no cost to central government — which just makes even bigger in-year cuts inevitable The Secretary of State’s role should be to facilitate necessary savings while promoting the advance of localism and the Big Society. Unfortunately, Eric Pickles has felt it better to shake a stick at councillors than work with us.

Local and central government should be united in a shared purpose. Instead of chastising and denigrating local authorities through the media, the Government should deploy all its efforts to help councils minimise the impact on vulnerable communities and frontline services.

We would be delighted to discuss with the Secretary of State how we could take on the difficult challenges shared by all levels of government and would prefer to do this than continue with the gunboat diplomacy which is the current order of the day.

Local Government Association: Cllr Richard Kemp, Leader LibDem Group

Council Leaders: Cllr Carl Minns, Hull City Council; Cllr Cec Tallack, Milton Keynes; Cllr Paul Tilsley, Deputy Leader Birmingham City Council; Cllr David Faulkner. Newcastle City Council; Cllr Ian Marks, Warrington Borough Council; Cllr Virginia Gay, North Norfolk; Cllr Andrew De Freitas, North East Lincolnshire Council; Cllr Tim Carroll, South Somerset; Cllr Stuart Langhorn, Lancaster City Council; Cllr David Watts, Broxtowe BC; Cllr Tony de Vere, Vale of White Horse; Cllr Keith House, Eastleigh BC; Cllr Anne Turrell, Colchester (NOC); Cllr Sian Reid, Cambridge City; Cllr Alan Connett, Teignbridge DC; Cllr David Budd, Purbeck DC; Cllr Ann De Vecchi, Lewes DC; Cllr Dorothy Thornhill, Watford Mayor; Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson, Leader, Portsmouth City Council

Group Leaders: Cllr Alan Boad, Warwick DC; Cllr Gavin James, Basingstoke & Deane BC; Cllr Tom Smith-Hughes, Essex CC; Cllr Joe Abbott, South Tyneside; Cllr Roger Hayes, Bolton MBC; Cllr Peter Wilcock, Uttlesford BC; Cllr Simon McDougall, Arun DC; Cllr Brendan Haigh, Newark & Sherwood DC; Cllr Nigel Martin, Durham; Cllr Hilary Jones, Derby City Council; Cllr Linda Redhead, Halton; Cllr Sue Carpendale, Babergh DC; Cllr Iain Sharpe, Watford BC; Cllr Kathy Pollard, Suffolk CC; Cllr Maureen Rigg, Stockton; Cllr John Boyce, Oadby & Wigston BC; Cllr Andrew Smith, Chicester DC; Cllr Phil Taylor, Tewkesbury BC; Cllr Len Gates, Test Valley BC; Cllr Ruth Davis, South Gloucestershire; Cllr Tony Gillam, Gedling BC; Cllr Chris Maines, Lewisham BC; Cllr David Milsted, North Dorset DC; Cllr Roger Price, Fareham BC; Cllr Brian Greenslade, Devon CC; Cllr Ian Stewart, Cumbria CC; Cllr Richard Andrews, West Oxfordshire DC; Cllr Margaret Rowley, Wychavon DC; Cllr Ann Buckley, Havant BC; Cllr Jane Parlour, Richmondshire DC; Cllr Alan Sherwell, Aylesbury Vale DC; Cllr Graham Longley, Southend BC; Cllr Zoe Patrick, Oxfordshire CC; Cllr Brian Jeffries, East Riding of Yorkshire; Cllr Bob Sullivan, Waltham Forest BC; Cllr David Lomax, High Peak BC; Cllr Paul Coddington, Doncaster MBC; Cllr Liz Tucker, Worcestershire CC; Cllr Simon Ashley, Manchester City Council; Cllr Roger Walshe, Sevenoaks DC; Cllr John Fisher, Staffs Moorlands; Cllr Paul Morse, Norfolk CC; Cllr Jane Clark, Wealden DC; Cllr Christina Jebb, Staffordshire CC; Cllr David Walker, Charnwood BC; Cllr Noel Rippeth, Gateshead; Cllr Penny Otton, Mid Suffolk DC; Cllr Nan Farmer, Carlisle; Cllr David Foster, Blackburn with Darwen; Cllr Dr Robin Studd, Newcastle under Lyme; Cllr Peter Chegwyn, Gosport BC; Cllr Richard Sharp, Woking BC; Cllr Mary Baldwin, Bucks CC; Cllr Jerry Roodhouse, Warwickshire CC; Cllr David Neighbour, Hart DC; Cllr Arthur Preece, Hartlepool BC; Cllr Nigel Hartin, Shropshire CC; Cllr David Neve, Tunbridge Wells BC; Cllr Geoff Welsh, Blaby DC; Cllr Roger Kutchinsky, Hertsmere BC; Cllr Ross Henley, Taunton Deane BC; Cllr Jack Cohen, Barnet BC; Cllr Julie Morris, Epsom & Ewell; Cllr Terry Stacy, Islington BC; Cllr Alex Perkins, Canterbury City; Cllr Geoff Chamberlain, East Devon DC; Cllr David Fearn, Derbyshire Dales DC; Cllr Helen Dyke, Wyre Forest DC; Cllr Paul English, Craven DC; Cllr Paul Elgood, Brighton & Hove; Cllr Paul Hodgkinson, Cotswold DC.

Letter to The Times 11 February 2011

Dear Sir,
We welcome the discussion that has been opened following yesterday’s letter by the Liberal Democrat councillors regarding the Tory-Lib Dem Government’s funding cuts to local authorities. It is important that as local councillors we stand together for our communities who will suffer as the result of the severe and frontloaded cuts to local authorities. We are therefore appealing through your columns for cross party co-operation in response to this urgent matter.

The Prime Minster David Cameron himself acknowledged in a speech in 2009 that “local government is officially the most efficient part of the public sector”. As councillors and elected Mayors we will work to continue to drive down the costs of delivering quality public services. However, we feel that Secretary of State Eric Pickles has been disingenuous about the impact his cuts will have on our ability to provide services. The design and depth of the cuts to local authority budgets will undoubtedly hurt local economies and damage frontline services.

Because of the costly long term impacts these cuts will have to our communities and our local economies we believe it is important that we keep the discussion with the Government open. We therefore invite Liberal Democrat councillors to join us in writing to their fellow Liberal Democrat, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander, to ask him to ask the Secretary of State for Local Government, Eric Pickles to look again at the unfairness of the Tory-Lib Dem Government’s cuts.
Our residents all across the country are relying on councillors of all parties to work together in the interests of the public and be their voice during tough times.