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by Prue Bray on 4 January, 2012
The Leader of Reading Borough Council has confirmed Council Tax will not go up in Reading in April: http://www.readingchronicle.co.uk/news/reading/articles/2011/11/14/55323-reading-set-for-council-tax-freeze/ I looked on their website to see what they are doing about consulting on next year’s budget, but to be quite honest, since it changed it is virtually unusable. No idea how you are supposed to find anything!
Bracknell Forest’s budget consultation says Council Tax will not go up in Bracknell either: http://www.bracknell-forest.gov.uk/your-council/yc-budget-consultation-2012-to-2013.htm
West Berkshire aren’t saying – but they have been running an extended consultation on their budget strategy, with an explanation of where the pressures are: http://www.westberks.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=24336
And Wokingham? Not a dicky bird on the website about consultation on the budget, or about whether the council intends to freeze Council Tax.
Is this a surprise? Not really. Most councils consult widely on their budget, with the public, and through discussion in council committees. In a lot of areas, the detailed proposals, including what’s happening to Council Tax, are routinely published well in advance. For example, Brighton & Hove announced what their intentions were over a month ago: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-15987925
But the Conservatives in Wokingham keep everything to themselves until they have to (by law) publish the papers the week before the budget meeting in February. Not only do the public have no idea what’s going on, opposition councillors are deliberately kept in the dark. We then get one week to try to make sense of hundreds of pages of information, and to ferret out the details and the implications. Why? I can only imagine that the Tories want to minimise the risk of challenge. Which suggests they believe they might come unstuck if such challenges were made – and in fact, that is what happens! That’s no way to run a council. Much better to work things through thoroughly with the challenges coming early on, so that if they reveal a genuine problem or weakness it can be addressed. We’re supposed to be elected to serve the residents of the borough, not just to play party political advantage.
2 Comments
It’s hardly surprising though, is it Prue? Wokingham Conservatives operate like a junta on everything. Just take the libraries debate, where none of them were willing to address residents concerns, but instead launched political attack after political attack.
They think that they can run a closed shop because residents don’t pay attention to what they do, only putting a cross next to Conservative candidates whenever presented with a ballot paper. Sadly, most of the time they’re right. If they actually started to engage with opponents and debate the matters (i.e. the regeneration, the libraries, what they’re doing with the council itself) then it might cause people to pay attention to what they’re doing.
When it comes down to it, you’re right: they’re afraid of challenge. That’s why they construct everything they do to give opponents a minimum (if any) opportunity to argue. Brighton & Hove’s approach is new, and I must say very impressive. A genuinely inclusive budget consultation is a breath of fresh air, and if it could be implemented across the country then politics might actually go back to being concerned with people. But as long as Wokingham Tories have their way, there’s essentially no real democracy.
[…] the council are refusing to publish it until the point when the law forces them to. I’m not the only person to write about this, but I feel I have to vent my confusion and outrage at this […]