Westminster Council’s massive budget deficit is the Conservatives fault

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Westminster Council’s massive budget deficit is the Conservatives fault

By Westminster Labour ⋅ October 12, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment
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Council finances are £13 million a year worse off because the Conservatives sought electoral popularity and ignored advice from successive Directors of Finance.

Labour Councillors say that Westminster Council’s current economic problems are a direct result of Conservative Councillors failing to make tough financial choices over many years and preferring the electorally popular choice of keeping the Council Tax low, rather than ensuring that the Council had enough money to run basic services.

Labour say that the latest £60 million of cuts announced by Westminster Conservatives are a desperate attempt to reduce the deficit caused by their own incompetence of basing the Council’s finances on income from unsustainable parking fines. The £20 million drop in parking fine income over the last 3 years has crippled the Council’s finances and has led to massive cuts, 350 job losses and big increases in charges.

Labour say that Westminster Conservatives have failed to take tough choices on Council Tax levels for many years, thereby eroding the Council’s income base. Year after year, the Conservatives have courted electoral popularity with Council Tax rises below those recommended by successive Directors of Finance. The result is that the Council has £13 million a year less income than it requires, leading to the painful and damaging cuts we are now seeing. That extra Council Tax income would have cost Band D Council tax payers just 80p a week extra and would have avoided many of the cuts.

Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg, Leader of the Labour Group, said: “For years, the Conservatives took the easy choice of relying on unsustainable parking fine income. This was bound to go down at some point and cause major problems, as we are now seeing. Labour Councillors have consistently warned that the Council’s reliance on parking fine income was dangerous and potentially very damaging. We were prepared to advocate tough but prudent choices on Council Tax levels to ensure that services could be paid for. We take no comfort from being proved right and we will take no lessons on economic matters from the Conservatives who consistently failed to take the tough choices required on the Council Tax and which has led us into this financial mess.”

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