Council Tax Up 3% As Budget Debate Gets Heated

Discussions surrounding proposed budget cuts to Wrexham’s services and an increase of Council Tax resulted in a lengthy, heated debate by local councillors yesterday.

At yesterday’s Executive Board meeting proposals for the 2015/16 Revenue Budget further cuts to Wrexham’s services were put forward in a report, with the Council looking to make savings of over £11 million in the next 12 months alone.

In almost an hour long debate opinions on the proposed Council Tax increase and other elements of the report were batted around by councillors. A cantankerous exchange developed between the Leader of Wrexham Council Mark Pritchard and former Lead Member for Finance Councillor Malcolm King on the topic of finance, and the nature of asking questions.

The very start of the meeting had a question raised regarding the policy of raising questions, with Cllr King previously being denied a supplementary query. Cllr King asked if a policy change had occurred, but was told by Cllr Pritchard he would be exercising his gift as Chairman of the meeting to decide who gets to ask additional questions as he wished the meeting to proceed on agenda items and not be to used as ‘a platform’. Denied a follow up question, Cllr King said it was ‘strange way to work’.

After the initial opening bout the meeting proceeded and eventually came to discuss the budget report with Council Leader Mark Pritchard saying: “As you know been working hard to produce a budget and address feedback from public. The budget will be recommended to Full Council in February.

“Considerable effort has been made by officers and members of this council together with feedback from extensive consultation that a budget will be recommended in February, there have been appropriate decisions in difficult times. I urge you to approve these for recommendation.”

Last year a public consultation was launched asking the people of Wrexham for their opinions on proposed budget cuts and how they would ‘balance the books’.

Wrexham Council received a total of 1000 responses and as a result parking fees at country parks and a reduction in highway maintenance have been scrapped from the plans. It is also proposed that there is an increase of 3% to Council Tax at Band D, although there was discussion on the exact council tax increase figures contained in the consultation.

Speaking about the consultation, Cllr Pritchard said: ” I feel this has been one of the best we have had in this authority for years and I would like to thank the Lead Member for this. In the report it says we rounded off with 1000 responses and I am delighted.

“I would have liked more, but we have done as much as we can. We could get criticised for going out for a bigger costly consultation when we need to find this excessive amount of money.

Speaking about next year he added “We will go out again and continue to do as much consultation as we can.”

However the report was criticised by councillors both on and off the Executive Board, with Councillor Andrew Bailey telling the meeting that there is a ‘fallacy’ in the report.

Councillor Malcolm King, who was Lead Member for Finance until the infamous Executive Board reshuffle in September 2014 said he had ‘some difficulties supporting some of the later parts since my change of role’.

Cllr King added: “I have led most the process for this target, you may expect me to support most of it and with regret, like most of us I do support it. It’s about the consultation and how we interpret it. We took longer than previously which is good, and started earlier and gave better expectations.

“However they consultation is left with fundamental weaknesses. It isn’t statistically valid as no real attempt to create balanced group of respondents. No way of telling how representative that is of the population. We can see that in a number of different ways, while less than 1% responded, of these interestingly 25% were council employees.

“As we know reading the budgets, cuts affect children, younger people and older people. No one under 16 responded at all.”

“If you have a small, unbalanced response pool you can get very distorted views from that consultation. We can say we have made a very real effort to find out what people think, we cannot say they are the right conclusion.”

Cllr Pritchard challenged Cllr King to come forward to the Full Council and propose an alternative budget, adding: “You said you had a big input in this” pointing out that the initial plans were laid in August and there has been little change since, adding a personal note saying “I am disappointed in you.”

Cllr Pritchard went on addressing Cllr King saying “I understand now you are in the opposition and pour cold water in it. When you sit there and criticise it, find it very difficult.”

“You were in the thick of it with us and said we weren’t going fast enough. Sorry Malcolm, I don’t mind your throwing criticisms when they stick. You had massive involvement in this budget.”

Cllr King replied saying he “did raise the doubt early in the process” adding, “I am unhappy about being misrepresented on what I said at the start, I said I had played a major part and do support most of it.

“The only part I have doubt about are bits that have been added on in the end, 98% I support with regret. Thanks for lecture about my integrity but I don’t belief it’s justified.”

Eventually the Executive Board voted in favour of the proposed Revenue Budget and the 3% Council Tax increase contained within, with Councillor Andrew Bailey and Councillor Kevin Hughes abstaining from the vote.

For those interested the webcast from yesterday’s meeting can be viewed from 14:35 straight through to 15:22 here.