Exeter Liberal Democrats

New Year Message for the Leader of Exeter City Council

A chill wind has blown us into the New Year. It has brought beguilingly beautiful snow, but also a fear of the dangers that the ice can bring as we attempt to go on with our lives. So too it is with our fragile economy. Since the credit crunch struck, the economy has been propped up by replacing the unsustainable growth in private debt with a ballooning amount of public debt.

We all know deep down that you can't keep borrowing money to pay your bills. At some point, we will have to live on less or work harder for no additional reward. We know that's true on a personal level, it's also fundamentally the same for our Government and for our Councils.

With a General Election on the way, we'll get one side of the story as usual - "cut the deficit, not the NHS". What is the deficit? It is social security, pensions, education, defence etc. An honest poster would say - "cut social security, not the NHS". Or alternatively, "growing out of recession" as a mantra. In other words, keep borrowing and spending and hope nobody feels worse before the election. Hope too that investors will keep ploughing money into Britain's deficit; hope that exporting countries keep believing in our currency and hope that all the pensioners and savers in this country continue to believe that their hard earned financial security is safe in this government's hands. In other words, leave the deficit for the next government to sort out whatever the economic risks.

Unlike the government, Exeter City Council cannot pay the bills on the credit card. Nor should we use future taxpayers' money in this way. It is a fact that the City Council part of the Council Tax bill is once again the fourth lowest District bill in the country. Despite this, we provide very good services as judged by the independent Audit Commission. How is this possible? Good management is part of it, but not all. The Council has had a generous income over the recent decade through commercial sources such as car park fees and planning fees as well as a stream of special grants from government and sponsorship from private businesses. This money was spent on increasing the services provided - more festivals, more street cleaning, more CCTV. Now however, these economic funds have fallen away and the government grants have reduced to a trickle, businesses have slashed their community spending. We welcome the Concessionary Fares scheme but had no choice other than to have been lumbered with the huge costs of implementing it. We are getting increased demands for support in housing, benefits, business and debt advice as well as all the other services. Nationally agreed pay increases and inflation for things like fuel add to cost pressures.

In this situation, people have become accustomed to the increased level of services; they are regarded as being the way it should be. In addition, many of these services have permanent staff and equipment, which are difficult and expensive to stop as quickly as they were started. Reducing expenditure is a lot tougher than increasing it.

People will say that we should cut waste. Councillors' sandwiches have long gone and we rejected independent recommendations for an increase in our allowances. Senior management will be getting no increase - although their jobs are much harder now. We will shortly be reducing our senior management team from 4 to 3.5 as we arrange to share a director with East Devon Council. Posts have been left unfilled, so remaining staff are working a lot harder to pay for their modest pay rises. Redundancies have been made where services are no longer in demand, such as Archaeology. This is what cutting waste means in practice, and we have saved £2.5 million pounds this year, without any significant impact on the services people see. That is testament to the professionalism and increased productivity of Council staff.

However, we have further to go this year as we are still spending more than we are earning. Our budget will be set on 23rd February and the decisions are getting tougher. Many will have heard of proposed changes to bin collections or toilet closures. Taken in isolation we could easily say no. But what are the alternatives? The cuts we are not proposing will not get the headlines, but they include essential grants to the Northcott, the Phoenix, the Barnfield and a number of other Arts organisations. They include modest, but vital grants which support our Community Associations. They include continued spending on our ambitious festival programme, currently at four festivals a year. We support the Citizen's Advice Bureau and have increased investment in this during the recession. We could close the Tourist Information Centre, or the Underground Passages for small savings. We could strip out our economic development role and risk the continued success the city has enjoyed economically. We could abandon our modest support for the city centre, letting it slide to a poor condition. We could shut the Corn Exchange, but sell this key asset at a depressed price or incur ongoing costs for an empty building. We could disband our museum services and lay ourselves open to the accusation of providing nothing for the young and neglecting our culture. We could abolish the mayoralty and disband centuries of tradition and lose forever the depth of culture which makes our city special. We could reduce our Community safety activity; reduce our Community patrol and scrap CCTV. However, constant feedback tells us that people still don't feel safe enough in what evidence shows is a relatively safe city. We could stop our quarterly Citizen newspaper and lose our one universal form of communication with the whole population. We could strip out our community engagement function and people can find out about what's happening to them and their communities when the diggers turn up and it's too late to do anything about it. We could stop our free bulky waste collection and cancel our dog bins, thereby increasing the frequency of widespread complaints. We could sweep the streets less frequently or stop our graffiti removal service. We could stop the play schemes, especially since partners pulled out leaving us to pick up the difference in costs. We could stop building new play areas and lose our specialist staff. We could close our bowling greens which are the centrepiece of many of our parks. Do we really need Christmas lights?

For every service there are a group of passionate advocates and no doubt an enthusiastic Councillor to defend the senseless cuts. But for every reprieved service, another must be cut or the funds in the bank run perilously close to zero. That is why the Lib Dem run Council has made efforts to listen and has selected with great care and with no enthusiasm whatsoever, the areas where we feel the least damage to the community would be inflicted.

I am fully aware that no-one is going to stop us and congratulate us on the fine job we are doing overseeing the public finances responsibly. We cannot go around cutting ribbons and showering grants and lapping up appreciation. We can only sleep peacefully in the knowledge that we have done what we consider to be the right thing. No-one will in the future be able to say of us what they can easily say of so many politicians - that the long-term interest of the community was compromised by short-term political gain.

The alternative choices in Exeter are now stark. Labour will continue to spend, for they know no different. They will borrow and borrow until the bailiff comes to the door and prises away their credit card. Even now, they demand more spending. The Conservatives appear to know that there is a problem to solve. But like their national colleagues, they are finding it very hard to identify exactly what we need to do less of to make the books balance. They do know that they don't like the reductions we are proposing, but they are afraid to say what their alternatives are, if they even know what they are themselves. If you elect them, then you'll find out.

My Liberal Democrat Group is open about the problems we face and creative where we can be to reduce spending and preserve services. But we all know that politicians aren't alchemists. Liberal Democrat control of the Council provides a listening ear and a firm determination to do the responsible thing.

Cllr Adrian Fullam

Liberal Democrat Leader of Exeter City Council