Is
bumping up debt to over £ 1. 2Bn, and raising rents by 7% following a 17% three year accumulative rise in Council tax good for County residents?
Yesterday was the first day the Council’ s new Chief Executive hit base at County Hall. The Leader of Council Glen Sanderson turned up in an audi sports car, ditching his farmers 4x4 to impress his new team adviser.
His day was taken up pushing out a news report slating the Leader of the Labour Group in Northumberland, Councillor Scott Dickinson for having the audacity to criticise his forthcoming budget and we must emphasise its HIS budget.
During July 2020 the Tories on the County Council suspended their Chief Executive, Mrs Dajit Lally, following a whistleblowing incident and in August 2022 the same Tory Group struck a deal to sever her from her employment.
In 2020 the Labour Group Leader said: “ " We have no faith in the political leadership of this council after carrying out this act of silencing and urge them to rethink this course of action in the interests of the Northumberland residents. "
In the middle of a global pandemic, Mrs Lally has been recognised and applauded locally, nationally and by all political parties for her compassionate handling of our local emergencies. The last thing we need is a second wave ( of covid) and not having someone so experienced at the helm."
That lack of faith remains from members of the Labour Group in Northumberland as Councillor Sanderson took over the rudderless Council in September 2020 and until yesterday ran it without a full time chief executive in place in his own image as ‘ well dressed gentleman farmer’.
Infighting among various factions of the Tories held back both delivery of its corporate plan and pushed up costs to the public, yet in yesterday's criticism he managed to simply attempt to claim the successes of the last Labour Group who ran a minority administration at County Hall as his own at doesn’ t expect to be criticised for his egotistical rants.
He tried to claim the Ashington Blyth and Tyne line reopening to passenger transport as his own, Councillor Dickinson has reminded the Tories many times that “ if Labours administration hadn’ t pulled out all the stops and got the GRIP studies undertaken the project would not have got off the ground” and Councillor Dickinson has also said “ the starting a job with £ 31M of ratepayers cash which needs the Tory Government to cough up £ 166m to complete the project is poor management of public money”. To back that up, according to Councillor Sanderson in Chronicle Live yesterday they still haven’ t got the cash in the bank. Labour believe that is the wrong way to run a project that's so important to Northumberlands residents many of whom live along the route of the line have been written too and told about infrastructure cutbacks to save cash.
Councillor Sanderson then attempted to claim the Borderlands deal as his, a deal his party wanted nothing to do with from 2013- 2017 and records show not a single Tory attended any meetings regarding this massive money spinning project until they realised how successful Labour had been in securing the deal when they took over in 2017.
We spoke with Councillor Scott Dickinson, Labour’ s Leader and he told us at Northumberland News that “ with Councillor Sanderson running without a fully committed professional CEX officer whose income relies on them performing well, Councillor Sanderson has let the Council languish in the doldrums”. “ Since 2020 he and his team have run the Council using Officers whose main function was not that of the Chief Executive and expected them to perform their old and new duties at the same time, it just doesn’ t work.” “
Things have gone from bad to worse under his leadership and eventually the nonsense and infighting from the Conservatives led to a Government inspector writing a damning report on the mess the administration of the Council has got itself in”.
On the budget, Councillor Dickinson said: “ we have thousands of people driven into both rural and urban poverty right across Northumberland through the national government's rampant pursuit of money first, people later policies and the nations slippage into economic crisis of their making” “
This Council budget is set to strip more from an already drained society and will cause greater hardship for our residents”.
He said: " I would urge the Conservatives to think carefully about the 15, 000 most vulnerable residents they've already penalised this year in the middle of a real cost of living crisis. "
We'll have one of the highest council taxes in the UK and residents will genuinely be asking how on earth they are now going to be able to pay more. We know the Government has slashed local government finance, but the leader of the council said he was pleased with the settlement. "
If he is that pleased, why are ordinary, hard- working families being forced to pay more and get less?"
Among the £ 17 million in savings earmarked in the budget proposals are a £ 4. 93 million saving identified from adult social care and commissioning services. £ 3 million of that will come from reviewing individual packages of care.
Planning, council finance and corporate services will also see reductions in spend, amounting to almost £ 10 million in savings.
Councillor Sanderson insists in the mainstream press that cuts will not be at the expense of frontline services. Looking at the Conservatives performance since 2017, their inability to deliver Best Value on behalf of their residents and the series of money, money, money budgets since 2020, can you believe him?
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