The Final Budget

The Final Budget was set yesterday. As News filters through about what has been cut and what has survived we are investigating calling for a judicial review with the Public Law Project. This looks, not at what decisions have been made, but how they have been made. Whether the council have followed public and european law when setting the budget. If you can help or want to be involved contact me. southportanticuts@hotmail.co.uk or 01704531613

Our main points are:
Have they conducted consultations? The councillors and Ms Carney say no.
Have they conducted the required level of Equality Impact Assessments? Ms Carney and The Council Party Leaders say some have been conducted but they are not of an adequate standard.
Have they correctly identified and considered all their responsibilities under the law? Possibly not, they have categorised Children's Centres and Libraries as "Other services" when arguably they are "regulatory" (required by law).
Will the cuts impact Human Rights/be discriminatory? Possibly as they seem to be disproportionately targeted.

The result of not heeding this, some might say "important", others "politically correct", legislation is that the proposals put to the council have to be voted through using political bias and ideology rather than in full possession of the facts about how the people they are accountable to feel or how they will be affected.

The cut to the Tourism budget is likely to be particularly difficult for Southport as reported in The Visiter. The cuts will be hard across the Borough and we will likely not fully understand the impact until this time next year when more cuts will be being made. I am writing about Southport because it is where I live and understand, please do not take it as a slight against the rest of the Borough - I just don't want to write about what I don't understand fully. In fact if you are from other areas in the Borough please e-mail me with posts reflecting what is happening across the Borough and I can publish them.

All the local cuts will interact with national cuts and it is hard to see how or where the Government's proposed but as yet, not firmly identified, plan for economic growth is going to come from or whether they mean economic growth which benefits the people in terms of wealth and jobs or just economic growth which benefits big business through exploiting the poverty and joblessness they are creating. Whilst I have great sympathy with the plight of the individuals who voted through the cuts to set a balanced budget, I think what they have been complicit in is an unforgivable act which will decimate Southport, Sefton, the North of England and has gone some way to wiping out accountability and democracy in public services and I hope the voters will make them suffer for it at the ballot box.

Morally, if not legally, the councillors have responsibility to the people above the Government they work for the people in the truest sense - they recieve public funding and the law requires they work in our best interests rather than make decisions based on ideology or politics. Really the only fair and right thing, albeit brave, would have been to stand with the people against the poorly administrated and possibly not legal cuts from central government which will ulitmately drive our economy down the same path as Fianna Fail's Austerity program did in Ireland. This is, it is widely accepted by many prominent economists, what every other shock doctrine or austerity drive in history bar Canada's which was attributed to one off economic situations beyond the Canadian Government's control, has done. Even the European Commission which called for governments to reduce their deficits thinks austerity drives do not stimulate growth.

So now, as the cuts begin to materialise on the ground, we listen keenly to sound bites from Central Government about Localism and a "redistribution of power to the people", as our democratic rights, enshrined in Public and European Law, are almost entirely disregarded by our Council whilst implementing deeply damaging cuts as a direct result of Central Government policy we listen and we think - "Is the reality of this new "redistributed" power to the people, as demonstrated by how Local Authorities have been scapegoated and have consequently not involved the public in the cuts process at all, the same reality we will see when it comes to the plan to stimulate the growth we now need more than ever?" I hope not because that prospect is frightening.