‘It’s a broken council which is failing it’s people and this budget must be rejected’ – Linda Garcia, WIG group
Councillors have set Edinburgh’s budget after a marathon meeting at the City Chambers yesterday. A raft of deputations from across the city urged the council to reject a budget package of cuts and service reorganisation aimed at saving £22 million this year, but councillors voted to approved the budget.
Leading the deputations was Royston Wardieburn Community Centre’s Women’s International Group (WIG). Royston Wardieburn was the city’s very first purpose-built community centre – it first opened in 1965. Two years ago – after years of hard work by the management committee – a brand new centre was opened, but members fear that all that good work could be undone by proposals to change the way community centres are operated.
WIG’s Anna Hutchison told councillors: “We are very concerned about these proposals. We have achieved a great deal in our Centre in recent years, but there is still a great deal of work to be done and we cannot build on our achievements when everything keep changing.
“Cutting CLD (community learning and development) staff and removing them from centres seems very short-sighted given that the Scottish Government is now requiring all councils to produce a CLD plan stating how they intend to build stronger, more influential and inclusive communities and improve life chances through learning and active citizenship.”
She warned that voluntary management committee members would ‘walk away’ if proposals to change the role of CLD staff in the running of community centres is implemented.
WIG’s Linda Garcia added: “We do not accept the proposed budget. We do not accept the way Edinburgh’s finances are being run. We do not accept that inequality, poverty and powerlessness are inevitable in our communities.
“We have been ‘trained’ to believe that no alternative (to cuts) is possible and that achieving a decent and fair society is just too damn complicated, so best not to try! We do not accept that this is the case. We want a council which puts citizens at it’s heart”.
“We believe that this budget is unacceptable to the citizens of Edinburgh. Unfortunately, despite a string of scandals, the Council seems unable to change. It is a broken Council which is failing it’s people and this budget must be rejected”.
“We demand that you join the campaign to secure additional funding from the Scottish and Westminster governments to safeguard our public services.
“We demand that you support Unite’s campaign to restructure the £1.2 billion debt owed by the Public Works Loan Board – paying £56 million in interest charges each year is completely unacceptable.
“We demand that the Scottish Parliament orders a Public Inquiry to examine the mismanagement of this Council, the numerous scandals and cover-ups by successive administrations.
She concluded: “We demand that you return power to the people.”
The group, joined by supporters in the public gallery, then serenaded councillors with a song! Based on the original Italian partisan song Bella Ciao, WIG’s words are:
The public sector is for the people
Oh bella ciao; bella ciao; bella ciao, ciao, ciao
The public sector is for the people
Not for sale to profiteers.
Oh we are singing for education
Oh bella ciao; bella ciao; bella ciao, ciao, ciao
We are singing for education
And an equal right to learn.
The rich get richer, the poor get poorer
Oh bella ciao; bella ciao; bella ciao, ciao, ciao
The rich get richer, the poor get poorer,
Unnecessary and unfair.
They cut the funding, they cut the workers
Oh bella ciao; bella ciao; bella ciao, ciao, ciao
They cut the funding, they cut the workers
Ain’t no ‘Big Society’.
Following that musical interlude, WIG were followed by a succession of deputations from across the city, each one urging the city to think again. EVOC, Edinburgh East Save Our Services, Edinburgh Tenants Federation, Edinburgh Trade Union Council, UNITE Edinburgh Not for Profit Branch, Edinburgh Anti-Cuts Alliance, Friends of the Meadows and Bruntsfield Links, UNISON and the EIS: each one advanced powerful arguments – but ultimately each one was unsuccessful as councillors voted to press ahead with the cuts.
Protecting frontline services in Edinburgh for young, old and vulnerable residents was a priority at the budget meeting, according to senior councillors. Investment in roads and pavements, investing in school infrastructure and working towards the redevelopment of Meadowbank Sports Centre and Stadium were other key priority areas.
Councillors say public opinion expressed during the recent budget consultation helped to influence key decisions as they attempted to balance the city’s books.
Cllr Alasdair Rankin, Convener of the Finance and Resources Committee, said: “Given the financial challenges all local authorities are facing over the next few years, we want to invest in the areas that are essential to Edinburgh and so it is important that the public continue to tell us what is important to them.
“This year we published the draft budget in October and 3,525 people gave us their views – five times the number of responses compared to last year. We also used a new online planner to give respondents the opportunity to express what they feel the Council’s priorities should be. The planner allowed us to show where we will incur costs in 2017/18, to demonstrate the impacts of increasing or decreasing spending in all of our services. This was extremely popular and 1,719 of those people took Edinburgh’s Budget Challenge.
Cllr Bill Cook, Vice-Convener of the Finance and Resources Committee, said: “We used the feedback received during the consultation process to help us make many key decisions such as maintaining funding for homelessness services, not increasing allotment charges and putting an extra £5m towards improving roads and pavements.”
The eight successive year’s Council Tax freeze maintains Edinburgh’s band D rate as the lowest of Scotland’s four major cities.
The council tax band levels for Edinburgh in 2015/16 will be:
A: £779.33
B: £909.22
C: £1,039.11
D: £1,169.00
E: £1,428.78
F: £1,688.56
G: £1,948.33
H: £2,338.00
The total revenue budget is £949m for 2015/16. Council Tax funds 25% of this with 75% coming from Government grants and business rates. The total capital budget (including the HRA) is £245m.
Key budget provisions:
Ensuring every child in Edinburgh has the best start in life
– Allocated an additional £5m of capital to support rising school rolls
– More than £4m invested in Early Years Change Fund for services for the very youngest children
Ensuring Edinburgh, and its residents, are well cared-for
– Maintaining funding for commissioned homelessness services
Providing for Edinburgh’s economic growth and prosperity
– Maintaining £1m to continue supporting the Edinburgh Guarantee, helping improve job opportunities for young people
– Support the Strategic Investment Fund with an additional £4.5m
Strengthening and supporting our communities and keeping them safe
– Continuing to invest in community policing
– Allocating an additional £100,000 to each neighbourhood to allow local people to have an even greater say in how their area can be improved
Investing in roads, pavements and cycling infrastructure
– An additional £5m investment in roads and pavements taking the total to £20m
– Commit 8% of the transport revenue and capital budgets for creation and maintenance of cycle infrastructure
Becoming more efficient
– Delivery of procurement transformational efficiencies
– Implementing the Better Outcomes Leaner Delivery (BOLD) programme
– Reducing the head count of the organisation by developing existing staff, revising roles and responsibilities and implementing structural change in the organisation through the ’Organise to deliver’ programme
– Maximising income
– Maximising savings through the rationalisation of the Council’s property estate
– Reducing carbon footprint and generating income through strategic energy projects
While the council argues that front line services are being protected, campaigners believe city councillors have let the capital down.
One Unite member who attended the lobby said: “This is a sad day for Edinburgh. You might have thought that a Labour-led council, supported by the SNP, would stand up for workers and communities – well, today’s vote shows you can think again. You can’t cut 1200 jobs without it having a huge effect on services and the people who will suffer most are the people in the poorest communities, the people who depend most on council services. People are angry – and rightly so, because these cuts will do real damage. Edinburgh is a rich city, yet our politicians vote through cuts on this scale? It’s shocking – they should be ashamed.”
A member of the Anti-Cuts Coalition added: “Deputation after deputation urged the council to reject this budget but it’s clear the councillors had already made their minds up. They blame Westminster, they blame Holyrood but at the end of the day our councillors have got to take a long, hard look at themselves.
“They have got to make a stand – if local councillors won’t support and fight for their communities, who will?
“Communities are being treated with contempt and remember – these cuts are just the start. We are facing another two years of austerity budgets, with more services slashed and hundreds of jobs lost – and when members of the public wake up to that it will be too late.”
Visit our Facebook page to see a webcast of the Budget meeting
http://l.facebook.com/l/PAQGWhuX2/www.edinburgh.public-i.tv/core/share/open/webcast/0/0/0/0//webcast/0/0/0
You’ll find pictures of the lobby there too