Tonight the public are looking at Tory Councillors and MPs and the monumental failure of them to negotiate a fair settlement for residents.
It has been revealed tonight that the Conservative Government has deceived the public and its own naive Council Group and slammed Medway with an eye-watering 11.9% cut
Rehman Chisthi, Tracy Crouch and Mark Reckless have failed to represent the pressing requirement for Medway to the government. They have failed to fight for Medway citizens and have left the Council base in a worrying position for next May.
Hundreds of thousands of pounds will be cut in Rainham, will be cut in Lordswood, will be cut in Hoo, Cliffe and Halling.
Millions will be cut from schools, from parks, from services to elderly people, from public safety.
Tory candidates in marginal wards now find themselves fighting not only Labour poll leads but the headwinds of their MPs failure to negotiate and fight our corner. Dozens stand on the edge of defeat tonight as the national government falls apart.
The fact is Medway Conservatives have spent years biting the hand that fed them with ever greater grants.
The people expected them to use their influence to reduce the scale of damage to Medway. They elected Conservative Councillors and MPs to fight our corner against over-aggressive cuts.
After years of pious rubbish about 'influence' from Cllr Jarrett, we now have the true extent of his influence with government.
Conservative Ministers have bare-faced deceived the public. They have said earlier this month that the drop in funding resulted in a 3.6 per cent cut in Medway’s spending power – and that no council will see a drop greater than 8.9 per cent.
But Medway Council’s officers have worked through the figures provided and discovered a much larger cut of 11.9 per cent in grant funding from the government.
This is far greater than the average for all councils in England of 9.9 per cent and more than the average for unitary councils outside of London, which is 11.4 per cent.
The new figures, worked out by Medway Council, follow the announcement by the government of all council total formula grants for 2011/12 on 13 December.
This leaves Medway with a £23.5 million funding gap for the 2011/12 financial year – which is how much it will need to save to balance its budget.
The council had predicted a funding gap of £19.5million
Medway Council has been carrying out a great deal of work to see where it can make reductions while protecting its vital front line services such as social care, highways, refuse collection as well as other important and valued areas such as Sure Start.
And the council’s cabinet has now instructed officers to start consultation, where appropriate, on team restructures, which will lead to job cuts.
Directors and Assistant Directors have also been working on an exercise to reduce budgets by 25 per cent over four years and an initiative called ‘Better for Less’, which is looking at how the council carries out its work and where efficiencies can be made, is ongoing.
In addition to this, the council has already announced pay freezes, cuts to jobs last June and is closing its regeneration arm – Medway Renaissance – with a loss of nearly 20 jobs.
In its announcement, the government stated that grants in areas such as transport, skills training and migration will go.
The council will be setting a budget for the new financial year in February and will need to take into account the huge drop in funding it has received.
Cllr Alan Jarrett, Deputy leader and Portfolio Holder for Finance said:
“I find the smoke and mirrors way the government has attempted to make it look like Medway is only losing around four per cent, when in reality it will see cuts of nearly 12 per cent next year, particularly unpalatable.”
So will Councillor Jarrett resign?
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