Edinburgh Greens propose small council tax rise to improve council services and combat cuts
Green councillors in Edinburgh are proposing a small council tax rise to raise £10m to invest in services. They believe that combatting cuts in schools, social care and vulnerable children services should be the capital’s priority.
Green councillors in Edinburgh are proposing a 4.3% council tax rise for next year: equivalent to an extra 97p a week for the average Band D property.
The council tax rise, which is backed by 63% of respondents to the council’s budget consultation, would still leave the council having to make significant efficiencies and savings, but, according to the Greens, it would head off the worst cuts.
The £10m package includes
– Retaining a properly-funded school music service
– Blocking cuts to special schools and disadvantaged children
– Keeping budgets for social care for frail older people
– Supporting community centres, libraries and leisure centres.
The additional money would also allow the Council to recruit and keep more care workers to bridge a gap of 5,000 unmet care hours a week. And it would see a substantial investment in long term repair and maintenance of schools.
The proposals are outlined in a blog published today by Green Finance spokesperson Councillor Gavin Corbett, ahead of the council budget meeting this Thursday (21 January).
Cllr Corbett said: “This year’s budget round is by far the toughest since devolution in 1999, with the city council looking down the barrel of £85m worth of cuts. That includes cuts to schools, libraries, swimming pools, social care and community centres.
“That is why almost two-thirds of people responding to the council’s budget consultation backed a council tax rise. I agree with them and I am proposing 97p extra a week to reverse all of the worst cuts and also help tackle to mounting crisis in social care.
“So I believe the city council owes to it to the people of Edinburgh to have a proper grown-up debate about the right balance between new income and spending. To shrink away from that debate, to meekly accept whatever cuts central governments dole out is to infantilise the capital city, to impoverish vital services and to simply store up yet greater problems for the future.
“Let’s have that grown-up debate.”
Edinburgh currently has five Green councillors on a council that is dominated by Labour (21) and the SNP (17) so it would be a major surprise (i.e. there’s next to no chance) if the Green proposals were to be adopted.
When city councillors set Edinburgh’s budget on Thursday it’s expected that the Labour-SNP Capital Coalition will vote through budget cuts of £85 million. Up to 2000 jobs will be lost in what public services trade union Unison describes as ‘the worst cuts in living memory’.
You can find the Edinburgh Greens blog on the budget at
http://www.edinburghgreens.
24
0
20
