Thursday, 14 June 2007

LIVERPOOL COUNCIL LEADERS ,JOIN FORCES TO MEET GORDON BROWN IN PLEA FOR CAPATILISATION

DESPITE THE FALLOUT FROM JOE ANDERSON RESIGNING FROM THE CAPITAL OF CULTURE BOARD, JOE HAS AGREED TO PUT HIS NAME TO A LETTER ADDRESSED TO GORDON BROWN REQUESTING A MEETING TO DISCUSS POSSIBLE AGREEMENT FROM THE GOVERNMENT TO ALLOW LIVERPOOL COUNCIL TO FUND THE CULTURE EVENTS FROM THE SALE OF BROWN LAND AND THE CITIES FAMILY SILVER.

This is a situation caused by the Liberal Democrats, as they have not prepared for the funding of the celebrations.
If Gordon Brown does not agree to this proposal then Liverpool City Council Tax payers will have to foot the bill on top of the usual payments for services.

Other suggestions for the funding have been proclaimed,
examples are;


Senior managers and chief executive to take a pay cut, this would fund the whole of the years celebrations!
Get Henshaw to repay his blackmail money back to the city.

Sack Phil Halsall


Stop payments from the city council to Liverpool Directrobbery Limited.


USE YOUR VOTE IN MAY 2008 AND GET RID OF THE BUMBLING IDIOTS WHO ARE RUNNING THE CITY!


SEE BELOW FOR ECHO REPORT

Polictical rivals in joint appeal for Culture cash

Jun 14 2007


by Larry Neild


LIVERPOOL’S two political leaders are to head a delegation to make a joint plea to Chancellor Gordon Brown to help plug the £22m gap in the city’s culture year funding.

Council leader Warren Bradley and Cllr Joe Anderson buried the hatchet following a stormy 24 hours during which the Labour leader sensationally resigned from the culture company board.

The fall-out over the funding of the city’s 2008 European Capital of Culture year continued in the town hall council chamber last night.

A special meeting of Liverpool City Council was called to debate a controversial funding package which would mean Liverpool raising the £22m by borrowing the money over five years.

The strategy will collapse if the government refuses to bend the rules to agree the funding formula.

So after political foes battled it out in a debate over the money shortage, Cllr Bradley threw down the gauntlet to the opposition leader.

He challenged him to sign a joint letter to Gordon Brown to help give the plea for help cross chamber support.

Cllr Anderson studied the letter and agreed to his name being placed alongside the leader’s, but on the basis that they ask for a meeting with the Chancellor and Treasury officials.

The move comes more than 20 years after the then city council sent a delegation, headed by John Hamilton and Derek Hatton, to make a plea to the Margaret Thatcher government to help bail out the city from a financial crisis.

Cllr Anderson said: “I have made my feelings known about the way the culture programme is being handled, but we all want to see our Capital of Culture year succeed.”

Cllr Bradley, who sprang the surprise letter during the heated funding debate, said: “I am delighted we can approach the Chancellor as a united front on behalf of the people of Liverpool.”

The plea to Mr Brown is not seeking extra Government cash. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell made it clear in Liverpool last month that there would be no extra money from Westminster for Liverpool’s culture year.

An escape route, devised by resources director Phil Halsall, would involve the council borrowing the money and repaying it over five years. If money earned from the sale of brownfield sites is used it could mean there will be no impact on council taxpayers.

In the letter the two councillors say they are asking for help and support to complete the last phase of the culture year funding package.

They want permission to use a mechanism known as capitalis- ation, which means borrowing money and spending it as a one-off on the cultural programme.

Government rules normally mean that cash raised in this way cannot be used to pay for festivals and events, but the two councillors stress that an exception should be made.

They tell Mr Brown: “Put simply, future generations will all benefit from 2008 and therefore it feels unfair to expect the current generation to pay for the event in a single year.”

Earlier Labour councillors complained that the ruling Lib-Dems should have been putting money aside for the past four years to pay for the celebrations.

But Cllr Bradley insisted: “Capital of Culture will be our springboard for a bright future for our city.”

larryneild


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NADIA GETS TO USE MACCAS GOLDEN SHOWER

NADIA GETS TO USE MACCAS GOLDEN SHOWER

QUOTE OF THE YEAR 2007

Council leader Warren Bradley said that some individual councillors’ behaviour was “appalling” and not fitting of a democratic society.

FULL STORY

BUMBLING BRADLEY

FIREMAN'S INTERVIEW WITH ROGER PHILLIPS, AFTER COUNCIL RANKED THE WORST FINANCIALLY RUN

Roger: This is not a good report for us is it Warren?
Fireman:Well Roger we’ve got to put it into perspective really haven’t we and remember where Liverpool was and that’s not thinking back 10 years. Liverpool has come an awful long way. The people of Liverpool were asking for lower Council Tax and the Liberal Democrats have delivered that and they also wanted better services and you look at the services that are now delivered by Liverpool City Council. If we look at the most vulnerable either elderly or the Children’s Services the social care we are now delivering at a level that Liverpool has never delivered before. We also look at the bread and butter your schools, your sports centres, your libraries, One Stop Shops in communities, our parks, we’ve got 13 green flag parks. It’s like a new home to me when you get an old dilapidated derelict building you’ve got to bring it up to a standard and I think Liverpool City Council under the Liberal Democrats have certainly done that and I am certain if we did a survey of people in the City do you want Liverpool City Council to sit on £20m worth of reserves or do you want the City Council delivering front line services that affect the most vulnerable and people’s lives in the City. I think that they would vote with their feet and say that we support the policies of Liverpool City Council. We’ve got to look at the financial regulations put in by Government and if you want my opinion about this Roger it is purely political.
Roger: Well come on, you know the Audit Commission is not a political body
Fireman: Well with respect Roger and I would beg to differ on that
Roger: Well how can it be a political, it’s an independent organisation?
Fireman: We can say everything is independent to a certain extent but you know you look at what we’ve got at the moment in Liverpool and we’re delivering top quality services.
Roger: But the problem with this is that you’ve got an overall score rating of 2 which was adequate performance into 05, overall score in 06 was 2 which is adequate performance.
This year it is down to 1 below minimum requirements inadequate performance.
Fireman: Based around financial regulations…
Roger: Yes I’m talking about the financial…..
Fireman: Laid down by government. I mean that’s what you’ve got to remember. Don’t try and muddy the waters and say oh this is about Liverpool City Council and their overall performance. It’s not. You look at the issue that we’ve done about achievements. Liverpool scoring 3-4 on achievement at the moment through the Audit Commission.
Roger: I didn’t know that.
(EDs: Pitiful, just pitiful.)
Fireman: And we do seem to always go to the negatives when we’re looking for something like this.
Roger: The District Auditor was pretty negative about you wasn’t he and…
Fireman: No, I have got to say Roger I would love to have £50m in reserves. I would also love not to have to put additions of £7m into adult social care and £2-3m into children’s social care. The facts are we have got to do that because of the pressures that are on Liverpool at the moment.
Roger: So are other Councils….
Fireman: I’m not willing as Leader of this Council to take away care to the most vulnerable to allow it to sit in reserve. I am not willing to do that and I will go to the stake on that the people of the City. Liverpool now is only one of a handful of Councils up and down the country that is providing moderate care to the most vulnerable people in the City. Now to give people an idea of what moderate care is that is home care. These people who’ve got no family to support them and require a visit in the morning or a visit in the evening to make sure they’re ok to help them to take the pills, to make sure that they’ve got the food. Most Councils up and down this country have removed that care. Liverpool City Council is still allowing our most vulnerable people our sort of care. Now is that wrong, is that wrong?
Roger: Now no one would argue that’s wrong but everyone. But many people are affected by housing. Housing is really poor isn’t it. I mean you are so poor you’ve had to hand it over to a different group to run it.
Fireman: Well with respect Roger, with respect, you’ve got to know what the Housing Corporation have done and in partnership with the Government again it’s easy to say it’s the Council, in partnership with the Government we’ve tackled head on through the Pathfinder areas of the inner core of the City some of the housing inefficiencies of the City. That hasn’t happened over the last five years that’s happened over 30 or 40 years. The problems in Norris Green in housing were prevalent 30 or 40 years ago and weren’t tackled. As an Authority we’ve challenged what wasn’t tackled and we’ve challenged it head on and I opened a couple of weeks ago with Flo Clucas and Marilyn Fielding with Cobalt Housing the first phase of Norris Green. We’ve transformed that area and its got houses for sale and social housing in Norris Green that people are seeking to live in now. We’ve got in a core Edge Hill, Kensington, Kirkdale the same issues that have been there for 30 or 40 years that we’re tackling now hand in hand with the Government. I’m not taking the credit for it and the Government isn’t. We’ve got a schools’ programme that is second to none. Liverpool’s young people are now achieving at the national average. I want it higher than national average to give new opportunity but again I’ll say I’m not going to suit accountants’ financial regulations in London and leave £millions sitting in reserve while we have still got the challenges Liverpool has got and I think people you know.
Roger: Do you think it was a mistake to keep Council Tax down or freeze it over the past few years?
Fireman: Well isn’t it ironic Roger how last week John Healey said how Liverpool is charging £101 a head...
Roger: Because its inefficiencies….
Fireman: Well we have taken £150m worth of inefficiencies out of our budget over the last 10 years. We’ve kept Council tax down which is exactly what Government policy is and is exactly what John Healey is saying. Councillor Joe Anderson is saying something completely different to the people of Liverpool that he will put taxes up to build reserves to put in reserve well again this administration this Lib Dem administration is not going to tax for the sake of taxing to leave money sitting in reserve. We will build up the reserves over a period of years and then we will be able to tackle some of the other issues that we’ve got to do. We recognise the health inequalities. To improve health inequalities we’ve got to have a real stable economy offering real opportunity and raising the aspirations in them poorer communities. You cannot do that leaving millions and millions of pounds laying in reserves and this administration will continue the robust financial management that we’ve done. We’ll carry on delivering…
Roger: If it was that robust we wouldn’t have this problem of £20m overdrawn on Capital of Culture.
Fireman: Roger, lets put things into hindsight. We are still delivering front line services. We are still…
Roger: It’s about £20m overall that we’re short this year – now that’s not robust management
Fireman: But Roger we are going through a budget setting process. Every Local Authority up and down the country is in the same process as us. I remember reading about Wirral being £50m short. Other Local Authorities. I meet the core city leaders who are £40-£50m short exactly the same as Liverpool . And let’s not forget I haven’t come on here to knock the Government I’ve come on here to say that I believe we’ve got a robust financial programme in place that is going to deal with the shortfall. We’ve delivered year on year but I’ll say again I am not going to allow millions and millions of pounds to lay in reserve. Cut front line services to the most vulnerable and then say that’s acceptable. Nor as Leader of this Council am I going to allow Council Tax to go through the roof again which will drive the inability to bring further investment into this City. While the Lib Dems have been in control we’ve brought Council Tax down, we’ve brought renewed confidence and we’ve brought real investment that will bring opportunities to the most vulnerable and I think that is the most important and I think the people of this City will stand full square with us on that. I’m proud of what we’ve delivered in this City over the last 10 years and Capital of Culture is part of that."