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It is once again the time of year for Bexley Council to be looking at its workload for the new financial year and setting a budget. My colleagues and I have put forward the smallest increase in Council Tax for 12 years. This has been achieved by a combination of longer-term financial planning begun two or three years ago, efficiency savings of some £3.8 million and the use of some of the Council’s reserves to limit the impact of the budget on local taxpayers.
We have worked hard to weigh up the need to improve services with the ability of local people to meet the cost of tax increases, and I am confident we have struck the right balance. We have done a great deal to improve Bexley’s excellent services to residents over recent years. The priorities reflected in our latest budget include working in partnership with others to improve the lives of people living in Bexley, to improve the life chances of our children and young people, and to develop thriving and sustainable communities in the Thames Gateway.
Bexley is soon to benefit from the early roll-out of Safer Neighbourhoods Policing teams, which will give every Council ward in Bexley its own dedicated policing team. Bexley’s Community Safety Partnership, which I chair, and in which the Council is a key player, will be working closely with the Metropolitan Police to build on their recent success in tackling crime and anti-social behaviour at the grassroots. Council resources were put in last year to speed this process up, and they will remain in the pot to help reduce crime and disorder and general issues of disadvantage.
Reducing crime and anti-social behaviour remains one of our top priorities. The roll-out of the Safer Neighbourhoods Team will mean that the whole borough can reap the benefits of the new local approach to policing that proved so successful in Slade Green, Erith, Welling and Thamesmead. I am determined to make Bexley London’s safest borough.
The Council is also committing £60,000 to improving its housing benefits service. The extra money will improve processing times and finance additional visiting and liaison officers.
The Council’s budget plans include continuing large-scale investment in long-term capital schemes, for which the Council has secured considerable external funding. These include -
- Significant improvements to the borough’s roads
- Investment in new school buildings
- New libraries in Crayford, Erith and Thamesmead
- The Innovation Centre currently under construction in East Thamesmead
Bexley Council owns a quarter of the Broadway Shopping Centre, Bexleyheath, and will be making a contribution of £1.7 million towards the cost of major improvements to the centre which will benefit shoppers and help ensure that the borough’s principal town centre continues to thrive, benefiting local shoppers and retail staff.
As I have said before, much of what we do is visible, such as recycling, libraries and leisure centres, but much of our work is hidden, such as child protection, work to support victims of domestic violence and visits by home carers to thousands of elderly residents.
Like you I pay Council Tax and would like to pay less, but hopefully we all see the benefit of paying in together locally and reaping the rewards that being part of a decent community brings.
Comment on this story
The House of Commons has been buzzing lately, with numerous controversial Bills being discussed. The introduction of Identity Cards and measures to combat Terrorism have been very much in the public eye, and so have the differences of view between the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
From time to time the intervention of the Lords serves a useful purpose as one of the “checks and balances” in our democracy, revising and improving legislation. But so long as the Second Chamber, the House of Lords, is made up of people who inherited their titles and people appointed by present or past Prime Ministers, they have no legitimacy to challenge the democratically elected Members of the House of Commons. The recent peerages for cash debate strengthens my view that, in a democracy, if we are to have a second Chamber, that Chamber must be elected and be accountable.
In recent weeks we have been debating Animal Welfare and proposals which will bring significant improvements. The Animal Welfare Bill is welcomed by the RSPCA, who will be able to intervene more easily to prevent cruelty. I hope the Bill can be strengthened by giving greater protection to Circus Animals. There is also the contentious issue of tail docking. I have to say that, on this issue, I am firmly on the side of the RSPCA and the Vets in wanting to see an end to this practice.
In the past month, the real debate on the future of schools has started. I am one of the critics of the Government’s Education Bill. I do not want to see education fragmented, with a collection of independent schools, unaccountable to their local communities. It is true that some local education authorities have a poor record, but others are achieving great success and I have seen no evidence to show that independent Academies necessarily do any better than local authority schools. I didn’t support the government when the Bill was first debated, and I will certainly be looking at ways in which the Bill might be amended as it goes through its various stages. In my view the best way to improve standards in poor, disadvantaged areas is to reduce class sizes, not bring in the private sector.
There has also been a great deal of huff and puff about the proposal to ban smoking in enclosed public spaces, such as bars and restaurants. Clearly this will benefit people who work in those establishments, who are at real risk from prolonged secondary smoking. But it will be a positive public health measure for everyone. All of the opinion polls show that this measure is backed by a majority of smokers as well as non-smokers.
Locally, I have been involved in discussions with the police, the council and other bodies about the problem of identity theft and fraud. In Erith this has been a problem because peoples mail has been stolen and then the thieves have opened bank accounts, transferred money, obtained identity documents such as driving licences in someone else’s name. It is a lesson to all of us about what we should not put in our dustbins – old bank or credit card statements, council tax , electricity or gas bills, all of which could be used by someone else as a form of identity – different documents confirming a name, address and account number. The lesson is shred it before you bin it.
And by the time you read this we will have had the budget. More about that next month………
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