Cllr Steve Foulkes, Leader of the Labour Group on Wirral Council, tonight branded as a hypocrite Cllr Jeff Green, the Leader of the Tory-LibDem coalition running Wirral Council. Cllr Green admitted at a Scrutiny Committee, that no public consultation whatever had taken place over the Cabinet’s decision to cut £3.9m from the Council’s budget in the current year. The Labour Group had called this decision in for further consideration and moved a resolution which would have referred back to Cabinet, cuts in budgets to areas like schools and the Working Neighbourhood Fund, which has been used to create over 100 apprenticeships, and asked the Cabinet to carry out meaningful consultation about these cuts with residents and key stakeholders such as small businesses, unemployed people and headteachers and governors.
This resolution was opposed by Conservative and Liberal Democrat members on the Council Excellence Committee who voted to endorse the original Cabinet decision.
Speaking after the Committee, Cllr Foulkes stated: “I am amazed at the utter hypocrisy of Cllr Green. One minute he is trumpeting his coalition’s desire to engage in public consultation around the future of Council services, yet he admitted at tonight’s call-in meeting that no consultation had taken place over £3.9m of savings and that the recommendations had been written by a small group of senior Council officers. I am also appalled at the actions of the Liberal Democrats who agreed our budget for 2010/11 in March of this year, but are now slavishly following their Tory partners’ decision to make damaging cuts to front-line services such as education and help for the unemployed and small businesses. They should be ashamed of themselves.”