Council led by a bunch of Tories

There was a photograph of a shiny new BMW for Pembrokeshire’s senior councillors on the front page of the Pembrokeshire Herald last week. Some might say this was a cheap shot coming at the same time as the council was announcing spending cuts and a council tax increase for 2016-17. I say it is evidence, if any is really needed, that the council is led by a bunch of Tories.

 

Pembrokeshire county council's new chauffeur-driven BMW

The council blames the Welsh Government for the spending cuts and the council tax rise. They say they’ve been forced to make them because the Welsh Government has ring-fenced minimal levels of spending to protect education and social care at the expense of other services. “If this continues over the long term, there would come a point where the Council could only afford to fund Social Care and Schools,” the Council’s Cabinet warned.

However, in the budget it set for the coming year, the council still hit social care the hardest. Of the total £10,971,000 cuts to its overall services, social care will bear nearly half. Adult social services will be hit most with residential care for older people, home care and day care services facing £3m cuts. That is to say, the most vulnerable people in Pembrokeshire will take the biggest hit.

This reflects the values of our, in effect, Tory led council. Indeed, the decision fitted very well with this week’s UK budget when George Osborne reduced subsidies for aids and appliances for disabled people, saving £1.2 billion, at the same time as raising the tax thresholds for the better off.

The attitude of Pembrokeshire council’s Tories became clear in last week’s budget debate when they voted against signing up to the Time to Care charter. Promoted by the Unison union, this aims to improve the employment standards of carers, particularly in ensuring they are paid at the right amount and for the actual time they spend working, including time travelling from one client to another.

The proposal followed research in Pembrokeshire which found great deficiencies in the service being provided. Researchers said continuity of client-carer relationship was hard to maintain because clients do not see the same carers regularly. There are concerns, too, about the standard of care. In particular the requirement that carers should spend no more 15 minutes with each client is too rigid. It undermines the professionalism of the carer and the dignity of the client.

Jamie Adams, leader of the ruling Independent Group, has conceded that it is within the council’s authority to sign up to the charter. But surprise, surprise, he said it would drive up wage levels and so cost too much. This is despite the fact that many carers are on the minimum wage.

 The vote against signing up for the Charter was only carried by a narrow majority. The ruling Independent Group needed the votes of the couple of card carrying “formal” Tory councillors to secure a majority, against the combined opposition of the Plaid and Labour groups and the rather comically entitled group of “independent Independents”. All this is why, I say again, Pembrokeshire county council is led by a bunch of Tories whose instinct is always to favour the better off against the most vulnerable in our community. I hope they enjoy their new BMW in the time they have left. There will be council elections next year.

Where the council should wield its axe

 On Monday Pembrokeshire’s councillors came face to face with the reality of George Osborne’s ideologically motivated austerity programme. They were considering a crucial phase in the council’s budget setting process for 2016-17, requiring them to make savings of £16.7 million. The question is where to make the cuts.

This is against a background of major cuts over for the past three years and more to come for another three years. As Jon Haswell, Pembrokeshire’s Chief Finance Officer, put it in his report on Monday, the 2016-17 budget comes “against the backdrop of the three most difficult financial settlements since the Council’s inception in 1996”. 


These are words we need to remember when we hear Pembrokeshire’s AM Paul Davies bemoan the rundown of essential public services like those at Withybush hospital. At root the responsibility lies with his own party and the actions of his own Chancellor of the Exchequer. But it’s amazing what a smooth talking politicians like Paul Davies can get away with.

It's amazing what smooth talking politicians like Paul Davies get way with

In his report Jon Haswell warns that the continuing cuts to the budget will inevitably lead to reductions in levels of service provision. Indeed, they threaten “the cessation of services” with the challenge being “to protect those services which impact on the most vulnerable.”

Monday’s meeting was just one stage in the process the council has been going through in setting its budget. There will be further consultations in the coming weeks with another meeting of the full council to consider a revised budget on 22 February. The final budget will be agreed in March, just ahead of the financial year. So there is still time to influence the decisions, but probably only at the margins.

As ever, the devil is in the detail of where the cuts are being made. To my mind the main question is whether the council is complying with its own edict to protect the most vulnerable. The first decision being recommended is that council tax should rise by 5 per cent, the maximum the council can undertake without it being capped by the Welsh Government. This will raise £2.5 million and I think it is justified given that Pembrokeshire has consistently enjoyed one of the lowest council tax levels in Wales for many years. But that still leaves a funding gap of £13.7 million on its overall budget requirement of £202.2 million.

So where is Jon Haswell proposing to find the savings? Looking down his list most of the headings are taking a relatively modest hit. So, for instance highways are losing £637,000, planning £519,000, corporate services £557.000, and housing £193,000. On the other hand, the most vulnerable people are taking the biggest hits: adult social care £3.9 million, and children’s social care £1m.

I think this is unacceptable and inconsistent with the council’s own values. Jon Haswell reports that the council currently has reserves of £45.1 million. These are due to be depleted by £15 million during 2015-16 to contribute to the 21^st Century Schools investment. There will be other calls on the reserves in future years. Jon Haswell’s account of them is pretty difficult to follow. However, there is a strong case to dip into the reserves by say £3 million to offset the cuts being proposed to its services for vulnerable adults and children during 2015-16.

How Labour spends to save seats

Follow the money is a good way of getting to grips with politics. But to understand the Welsh Government’s policy decisions I suggest you follow the politics. Two big announcements last week underline my point.

The first was a decision by the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board to keep consultant-led maternity provision in three north Wales hospitals – Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, Ysbyty Gwynedd and Wrexham Maelor. A report commissioned by the Board recommended that none of the maternity units should close. This follows months of uncertainty and massive campaigns across northern Wales reminiscent of our own campaign to sustain consultant-led maternity services at Withybush.

The Rhyl demonstration when 2,000 people protested

So why were the campaigns in north Wales successful while ours was not? Consultant-led maternity provision was moved from Withybush to Carmarthen in August 2014. As I say, follow the politics. The most vulnerable hospital in north Wales was undoubtedly Ysbyty Glan Clwyd situated in Bodelwyddan, a small community about four miles south of Rhyl. It also happens that the hospital is bang in the middle of the Vale of Clwyd constituency which, until this year’s general election, was a safe Labour seat.

But in the election Labour lost the seat to the Conservatives by just 237 votes, and undoubtedly the major issue in the campaign was the fate of consultant-led maternity services at Ysbyty Glan Clwyd. In February during the run-up to the election more than 2000 people in Rhyl demonstrated against the downgrading of the hospital. As in Pembrokeshire they were protesting against the prospect that mothers in labour would have to be ambulanced long distances for treatment, in their case to Bangor or Wrexham. Compared with the situation in Pembrokeshire those are relatively straightforward journeys, along the A55 north Wales dual carriageway.

Marching against the threatened downgrade

But, quite rightly, they were still unacceptable and the campaigners persuaded voters to register their opposition in the ballot box. Now another election is looming, for the National Assembly in May.  If a decision had been made to close consultant-led maternity services then, undoubtedly Labour was set to lose its Vale of Clwyd Assembly seat. In Pembrokeshire, of course, Labour has no seats to lose.

The other bid announcement last week was the distribution of the Welsh Government’s local authority funding grants.  What a surprise, therefore that it was Labour-run urban and city authorities across Wales that benefited most. Meanwhile, it was rural authorities that are run by other parties and independents that lost out. All authorities received a cut in their budgets but these ranged just 0.1 per cent for Cardiff to 4.1 per cent for Powys.

The average cut across Wales was 1.8 per cent. Pembrokeshire’s budget was cut by £157 million, or 2.8 per cent. Though largely a rural authority, neighbouring Carmarthenshire’s budget was cut by only 1 per cent. Why? Could it be that Carmarthenshire contains Llanelli, and that Labour-held seat is vulnerable to Plaid Cymru in next May’s election? Denbighshire which contains most of the Vale of Clwyd constituency and which again is largely a rural seat, had its budget cut by just 1.2 per cent. As I say, follow the politics.