Minutes:
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Performance of the Administration |
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9.1 |
It was moved by Councillor Julie Dore, seconded by Councillor Sioned-Mair Richards, that this Council:-
(a) recalls that central government has taken away around a half of its funding to the Council, resulting in the current Administration having to make savings of over £300m since the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition came to power in 2010;
(b) further recalls comments by the former Liberal Democrat MP and Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Rt. Hon. Sir Danny Alexander, that local government has “borne the brunt of deficit reduction” under the coalition government;
(c) regrets that the current government are continuing the approach to local government that was established by the coalition, decimating funding for local government, making significant cuts to provision in many services inevitable;
(d) understands that these government cuts have made it impossible for the Council to continue to provide the same level of services, which has meant tough decisions have had to be taken about which services to protect and which ones have had to be cut; and
(e) notes that despite these challenges the current Administration has balanced the books each year it has controlled the Council, and believes that the current Administration has retained its ambition for the city in these difficult times and has got significant achievements, including:
(i) protected child safeguarding from budget cuts;
(ii) achieved the best record for apprenticeships among the Core Cities;
(iii) helped to deliver Europe’s first Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District;
(iv) established Sheffield Money as an alternative to exploitative payday lenders; and
(v) delivered the Streets Ahead project, which has resurfaced 350 miles of road and 600 miles of pavement. |
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9.2 |
Whereupon it was moved by Councillor Colin Ross, seconded by Councillor Joe Otten, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the deletion of all the words after the words “That this Council” and the addition of the following words:-
(a) believes that poor political leadership and management, not solely Government cuts are the root cause of most of Sheffield’s problems, and that, after five years of financial reductions from central Government, the present Administration should have been far more innovative and found new ways of working on a reduced budget, which shows real political leadership in difficult times rather than wasting so much time complaining and blaming everybody else;
(b) notes the admission by the former Labour Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt. Hon. Ed Balls MP, made prior to the May 2015 general election, that he would, given the chance, axe another £3.3bn from local government budgets;
(c) believes that although Sheffield City Council has faced cuts from central Government, the present Administration has made politically motivated cuts and have made unpopular decisions to cut funding for libraries and parks and allowed cuts to be made to bus services, whilst continuing to spend money wastefully on their pet projects;
(d) believes that the Streets Ahead project was only made possible thanks to Sheffield Hallam MP, the Rt. Hon. Nick Clegg, who secured a £1.2 billion grant from central government as Deputy Prime Minister, without which the project could not go ahead;
(e) believes that this Administration has failed to correctly manage the Amey Streets Ahead contract as many areas of the City have faced delays in work and hundreds of healthy mature highway trees have been felled and the current Administration has done everything it can to jump to the defence of Amey, rather than representing the wishes of the people and holding them to account and further believes that this is yet again another example of poor leadership from the current Administration; and
(f) believes that Sheffield now is in need of real political leadership and innovation to deal with the situation Sheffield finds itself in, rather than the approach of the present Administration which is to just continue to explain what the present situation is. |
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9.3 |
Following a right of reply from Councillor Julie Dore, the amendment was put to the vote and negatived. |
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9.3.1 |
(Note: Councillors Aodan Marken, Robert Murphy and Brian Webster voted for paragraphs (b), (c), (e) and (f) and abstained on paragraphs (a) and (d) of the amendment, and asked for this to be recorded.) |
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9.4 |
The original Motion was then put to the vote and carried as follows:- |
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RESOLVED: That this Council:-
(a) recalls that central government has taken away around a half of its funding to the Council, resulting in the current Administration having to make savings of over £300m since the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition came to power in 2010;
(b) further recalls comments by the former Liberal Democrat MP and Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Rt. Hon. Sir Danny Alexander, that local government has “borne the brunt of deficit reduction” under the coalition government;
(c) regrets that the current government are continuing the approach to local government that was established by the coalition, decimating funding for local government, making significant cuts to provision in many services inevitable;
(d) understands that these government cuts have made it impossible for the Council to continue to provide the same level of services, which has meant tough decisions have had to be taken about which services to protect and which ones have had to be cut; and
(e) notes that despite these challenges the current Administration has balanced the books each year it has controlled the Council, and believes that the current Administration has retained its ambition for the City in these difficult times and has got significant achievements, including:
(i) protected child safeguarding from budget cuts;
(ii) achieved the best record for apprenticeships among the Core Cities;
(iii) helped to deliver Europe’s first Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District;
(iv) established Sheffield Money as an alternative to exploitative payday lenders; and
(v) delivered the Streets Ahead project, which has resurfaced 350 miles of road and 600 miles of pavement.
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9.4.1 |
(Note: Councillors Aodan Marken, Robert Murphy and Brian Webster voted for paragraphs (a) to (d) and abstained on paragraph (e) of the substantive motion, and asked for this to be recorded.) |