Tag Archives: cuts

'Divesting' services, Council spending, New Strategic direction, Your councillor

Have you signed the Save Suffolk Services petition yet?

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For the last six weeks I and my fellow Lib Dems can have been  found standing outside libraries and shivering in water-sodden streets trying to bring news of the New Strategic Direction in all its horror to as many people in Suffolk as possible.

After all, the conservative administration has done very little in that direction, as you can see if you click the following link:   Consultation – what consultation?

As a Suffolk resident wrote to me:

We certainly have not been consulted in any shape or form by SCC re the New Strategic Direction. Surely, they should have started by a direct letter to everyone rather than sandwich boards in the shopping precinct!

Our own consultation was not without incident: tragically I got nipped on the leg by an ill-tempered dog in Yoxford, only last week, while delivering leaflets with a broken foot in heavy rain. I hope he felt guilty. But the post MUST get through…

Have you got our leaflet yet? Have you signed our petition?

We are trying to get as many signatures to the petition as possible to deliver to the Administration at the next full council day, 2 December. If you have received one, try and collect as many signatures from Suffolk residents as possible – relatives, friends, neighbours, colleagues. It doesn’t matter about  age or background. These changes will affect us all.

If we haven’t managed to reach you, you can sign it online http://savesuffolkservices.blogspot.com/

or if you want to download it to collect further paper signatures: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/56654857/Save-Suffolk-Services-petition

Just remember to return it by the 26th November.

Remember to make sure your voice is heard!

'Divesting' services, Council spending, New Strategic direction, Suffolk County Council, Uncategorized

Suffolk’s NSD – a few sneaky sums

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We all know the story  – Suffolk has to make 30% cuts and all because of those naughty bad bankers and the UK’s mountain of inherited debt.

Right?

Wrong!

The Lib Dems have discovered that Suffolk county council only needs to make cuts of 11% IN TOTAL over the next four years to balance out the reduction in central government grants. This means cuts of less than 3% a year.

Which means that the administration used their huge Tory majority to  plan cuts that were THREE TIMES  as savage as they needed to be!!!!

How have they managed to spin this? Simple. They expect us to be not very good at our sums and not to check the facts and their figures. Pretty much like someone trying to sell you dodgy double-glazing or an unnecessary insurance policy.

They have estimated that the amount of money they would get from the government will be reduced by 33.3% over 4 years (because of the Comprehensive Spending Review).  That is, they assumed that Suffolk would have to manage on two thirds of the current central government grant.

In point of fact the reduction in central government funding will be just over 26% over four years (not 33.3%) which is much less of a hit. But this is just the thin end of their mathematical shenanigans.

BECAUSE the government grant makes up much less than half of Suffolk County Council’s total income. And the rest of this  income is not going to reduce at all. In some cases it will rise.

When we did the sums, the reduction  in Suffolk’s total income over the next four years  was NOT a big noisy 30%, it was less than 11%. That’s a very big difference when you  are talking about closing and selling off care homes, cutting school crossing patrols and closing the park and ride!