The Edinburgh cooncil budget has been agreed and I've been trying to cut through the spin to figure out exactly what's going on. If only the council would publish something that said clearly, "Here's what we did last year, here's what we're doing this year and the extra money under each heading will be used for..." Instead, we get extra millions for this and extra millions for that, but details only when it suits. The key battle grounds seem to be around Education and Transport.
First the spin. It's interesting to see Jenny Dawe claiming the credit for the 'Capital City Supplement' she says the council has won from the parliament down the road. Surely everyone knows that it was Margo's price for supporting the SNP budget at Holyrood?
Anyway, Jenny says her administration has set "an ambitious budget which will see us continuing to provide the excellent services that the people of Edinburgh want. It is also about building a fairer society and a stronger economy."
When you look at the 'additional' money that the administration claims to be providing, some of it seems to be going on things they have to do anyway under their statutory respnsiblities. Older Persons care? Isn't that supposed to be free in Scotland anyway? They will be building two new care homes, and so that's something to be celebrated for sure. However, as the headline item on the new administrations budget, 'Edinburgh council meets statutory obligations' hardly lives up to the Inspiring Edinburgh tag line the city has given itself. Maybe the current administration do plan exciting things in Social Care, but they've made a poor job of communicating it. It's hardly suprising then that the oppoistion parties have universally derided the agreement as uninspiring.
The Libdems are also proud to be stuffing money into the reserves and Jenny still can't help but get a dig in at the previous administration saying "In our first year we concentrated on delivering a budget to address the serious deficiencies we inherited from the previous Administration. What no-one could foresee was that we would be setting our 2009/10 budget in a world wide recession."
Jenny you protest too much. However, I doubt many people will be complaining about a council tax freeze for another year, even if Scottish Water keep raising their prices. However, one can't help but assume that if the administration is putting money into the reserves and holding council tax down the real increases in this budget, if any, must be pretty tight.
Speaking of the previous administration, Ewan Aitken is in the huff because he was left out of pre-budget discussions that included the other opposition parties. Whilst it's hard to make head or tail of the tit-for-tat millions here and millions there spin, the Labour proposals to subsidise and hence retain bus routes that are being cut under the current administration would have been welcome, especially when the tram works are making it harder to get around the city.
All the parties claim to rephasing road spending to take account of the Tram works. All of them have a slightly different emphasis. Labour prioritises pavements while the tram works are on. The Greens take a more holistic approach prioritising investing in cycle lanes, green spaces and public transport. Theres certainly political capital to made here, as the current administration will have a job to maintain any credibility on the transport front after the Seafield rd roundabout debacle that has managed to almost cut Leith off from Edinburgh, and completely inconvenience everyone else in East Edinburgh. And don't mention the bus cuts that seem to affect the poorest bits of Edinburgh most. And definately don't mention the Trams where leadership has been conspiciuosly absent from the city chambers. It is unfortunate for the Edinburgh executive that the most radical policy that they've adopted since they were elected wasn't theres - it was proposed by the Greens.
It's interesting the the Labour group would devolve a bit more pocket money to each of the Neighbourhood Partnerships. This is certainly a good idea and it's a shame that the Greens don't campaign for more devolution to neighbourhoods too.
Jenny defends the executives unpopular education cuts by pointing to the pupils results. Labour, and indeed the Tories and the Greens say they'd entirely reverse 'efficiency cuts' made to devolved school budgets last year. Although Cameron Rose explains at great length that this is because the Tories feel Education is overmanaged in Scotland. Cameron says, "The administration have called this a radical budget. Alas, it is certainly not that. New thinking is needed here to safeguard the education of our children." However, whilst I can agree that the current set-up doesn't do much for kids from poorest backgrounds, his medicine seems worse than the disease to me.
And while we're on the subject of what the Tories would do - he also makes it clear they'd also abandon the 25% affordable housing requirement in all new housing in Edinburgh, something I really can't agree with either. Last year the Libdems/SNP allowed one developer in Trinity to build their quota of affordable housing miles away of site in Leith, where the land was marginally cheaper. I thought this was bad enough as it threw away the only opportunity to build affordable housing in Trinity that's likely to come up for years. Labour in contrast would establish a dedicated affordable housing fund - but lets not be fooled by the spin - that fund already exists!
Cllr Burns has done a good job of pointing out where the administration has made further cuts/savings. Increased charges for school lets (up 30%), allotments (up 17%), and cuts to community education and voluntary sector funding that will have an impact in the city. In particular cuts, or freezes, to voluntary sector funding will hit the most excluded groups most. The current administration may claim to be 'investing' in social care and the vulnerable, but any spending gains are staying in house. The really vulnerable groups, like asylum seekers or homeless people have real trouble engaging with 'government services' - so I'm not sure these moves will be good for the most vulnerable in the city. Similarly, cuts to community education budgets, combined with school let rises could put a huge extra burden on small, largely voluntary groups. If the local Scout group has to put its subs up by 30% or more, will the drop off in attendance push it over the edge?
In the case of allotments, one wonders whether the massive rent rises will force people on low incomes off them? Afterall pensions haven't gone up 17% this year have they? It's certainly one way to shorten the waiting list.
So, there we have it. Uninspiring Edinburgh. If you're wondering where the SNP figure in all this. Well, it seems none of the local SNP bloggers are particularly concerned with what happens in the budget. If I'm missing something, I'd be delighted to be informed otherwise. However, as far as I can see the SNP are so hung up on national issues like the LIT that their parties role in propping up an immensely boring, some whould say paralysed administration, that none of them want to pass comment. Matters aren't helped of course by the fact that there seems to be no SNP elected people blogging (Rob Munn is on Facebook though). Are they embarrassed, shy? We'll never know unless the get on-line.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at 11:11PM