It’s been three months since Labour took back control at Hounslow after four years of the Tory/ICG administration.
THE TORY/ICG LEGACY
We have come into an organisation whose staff have been deeply demoralised by the past four years of Tory/Independent control, where £50 million has been removed from the revenue spend without any thought of the impact on the services, and where staff are not respected, nor encouraged to use their initiative to address local problems, and their employment rights are undermined. The Council’s partnership with key players in the borough – Police, Health, the Voluntary Sector, Business etc has been reduced to little more than a series of poorly attended talking shops. The businesses seeking to invest and create jobs in Hounslow tell us they felt the borough was “closed for business”.
We have told our officers that we will support them in turning round the culture of the Council.
CON:DEM GOVERNMENT ATTACKS
We have been told the rebuilding of five secondary schools and one special school in the Building Schools for the Future programme will be axed. This is only one of a raft of decisions being made by the Government in the name of economic necessity but is in reality an ideological attack on public services.
A series of grants in Hounslow for services for vulnerable children, young people and families have been already cut by Government - and this well before we hear about the main cuts to the Council's core grant - anything between 20 and 40% - at the October comprehensive spending review.
The cuts announced so far have fallen disproportionately on areas of deprivation – Newham’s cuts are six times those of Richmond’s. Hounslow has been told to expect at least a 25 per cent cut in direct funding over the next four years with the worst to come next year. We can only save so much from efficiencies and will have no choice but to withdraw services that people rely on in their daily lives.
We anticipate that the rate of building of desperately-needed affordable homes will fall to an all-time low. The HCA grants that subsidise the build programme may be one of the victims of October’s Comprehensive Spending Review.
On top of that the proposed rise in VAT, cuts to benefits and pensions and the withdrawal of tax credits will fall hardest on those with the lowest incomes Even people on middle incomes will struggle with their mortgage and childcare payments, and those in the public sector have the added fear of redundancy hanging over their heads.
I fear we could be returning to an era when homeless families were lucky if they got into a hostel. Local Councils, with less funding, will be expected to up the pieces.
