Happy New Year I have taken a break from blogging over the Christmas period, but now I am refreshed and back to blog. There has been much made in Swindon by Political Spin Meisters that the government financial grant settlement for Swindon is somehow not as bad as feared. That is fine if some want people to believe that spin or want us all to think that the Tory led government, has given us millions of pounds worth of cuts as an act of kindness! I do not swallow that for one minute and  in fact I fear it, because it is a like a row of dominoes each falling over as one is  hit by the other.  It is more like an accumulator bet except the payoff is a massive loss to ordinary families. They are bearing the brunt of the banking crisis and the bankers and the super rich are still comfortable.

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Some of us considered the Tory budget in Swindon as irresponsible in that they under-funded Adult Social Care and put £2.5M into general reserves in the expectation that it would probably be needed to top up Adult Social Care.

That stupidity has come home to roost with a vengeance.

While it could be contended that the very fact Swindon had £2.5M in general reserves as well as the recommended £6.0M in reserves any Whitehall official looking simply at the numbers would be forgiven for assuming Swindon was in a strong financial position and levied heftier cuts against Swindon than anywhere else. I don’t advocate that line because it may not be quite true. It is much more likely that the formula used for local Government grant worked against us again, as it has done right from the creation of Swindon Unititory Council.  Another factor is that our reliance on specific grants (achieved by Sir Michael Pitt working with the then Labour MPs) has caused us to fare particularly badly in this round.

What needs to happen is for Swindon to quietly lobby for a fundamental change in the distribution formula.  Shouting at the Parliamentarians has not worked and will not work.

The facts are that Swindon has lost £1.4 million revenue in the current year,  much of which is specific grants.  Just less than £1.2 M of this  is in children’s services other than education (welfare) – a blanket percentage reduction across about 20 budget heads.

Another area if difficulty arising from local Tory creative accounting is in ‘forward planning’. Three years ago the people who worked on structure pans and the land use plan for the Eastern development were transferred to the LABGI grant.  LABGI was a specific grant to help Councils that were in the business of expansion and regeneration and indeed it appeared legitimate at the time to move planning employees on to this organisation.  Now that LABGI has  gone there is a need to find an extra £300K in to retain this planning service.  If this is not done there will be even fewer controls on developers in and around Swindon .  Tho’ perhaps this is not a problem for the market forces fanatics in the Tory Party?

There are two potential problems for communities.

• Derique Montaut introduced Homeline to Swindon, 1984, the first in the country,  following an elderly person’s decomposing body being found after 3 months in a bungalow in Highworth.  That or something like it can happen again if Adult Social Care does not have the staff to follow up every lead of a vulnerable elderly person.
• The reductions in specific grants in Children’s services could mean that vulnerable and abused children slip through the net. Indeed most of the specific grants were put in place as result of previous tragedies such as Baby P.

Lastly the national cuts that are being introduced are part of Tory doctrine and have little to do with the economy.  World leaders have lost the influence of Brown, and his understanding of how to avoid the depression that followed the 1930s stock market crash.   We may be reverting to a new form of protectionism.  Cameron’s Tories have started a race to the bottom and Vince Cable seems to have forgotten that he used to agree with Gordon Brown.  Just where is the Liberal Democratic brake on Tory dogma?  Do you remember this LibDem poster!!

Cllr Des Moffatt