It is 24 hours since the majority of Conservative and Liberal
Democrat councillors came together in an unholy alliance to vote for no rise in
council tax.
I am still extremely angry at how they could so casually
have voted for yet more cuts and 135 job losses, without any thought about the impact
on the people affected.
Yesterday, I was approached by a number of staff who were
absolutely devastated at what had happened. Some were in tears. Many are in
teams that have just been through reorganisations and redundancy rounds. And
now there is more uncertainty and they know jobs are under threat once again.
What most upset me was the nature and demeanour of certain
councillors, who were laughing and joking as they voted to cut services. Some
even praised our “excellent” staff before voting away their jobs, in order to
get a “we voted for 0% increase” headline on their upcoming election leaflets.
I do hope that the electorate sees through the cynicism of
so many of their councillors.
And today, I saw a number of senior officers, who are
struggling to understand how they can make the cuts that the local representatives
of the Coalition parties voted through – damaging cuts such as the likely £855,000
that will be cut from Adult Care and Support, or the £479,000 from the smaller Strategy,
Localism and Communications budget.
The situation is dire and I remain disgusted with the
cynical short-termism of the Coalition and the majority of their local councillors.
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