Why council leader opposes cuts

WARRINGTON Borough Council leader Ian Marks has explained why he joined 17 other council leaders and 71 other senior Liberal Democrat leaders in signing an open letter to the government to slow down the pace of cuts being imposed on local government.
Councils want to work in partnership with the government, he says, but the behaviour of some senior Conservative ministers is jeopardising the partnership, he says.
The letter was published in The Times.
Cllr Marks said: “The country has been left with a record deficit from Labour’s 13 years in power and the country must deal with this as a top priority. The country is borrowing £400 million a day.
“It is the ‘front-loading’ of these cuts on local government we are objecting to. The reduction in central government grant should be spread more evenly over four years. This would give councils more chance to organise for the changes required to deliver the savings.
“We want a real partnership with central government because we can only make all the savings by doing things differently and by working more effectively with other parts of the public sector, like the police and the NHS.
“It is the behaviour of some of the senior Conservative ministers like Eric Pickles that is preventing this partnership. They need to put away the gunboats and work with us, not against us.
“Liberal Democrat led councils up and down the country are trying very hard to minimise the impact on jobs and frontline services. Councils like Warrington are having to make extremely tough decisions given the appalling mess Labour left the country in.”