My Speech to Budget Council

Posted By: Greg Couzens
Date Posted: 25/02/2009

Mr Mayor,

I am delighted to be presenting my second budget to Council tonight.

Last year, I stood before you and talked about the difficult economic year that was ahead and unfortunately this proved to be the case for us here in Rochdale.

It has been a hard year for our Borough. Many residents and businesses have experienced financial hardship, some of which being the worst in living memory. Residents have lost jobs, found it hard to pay the mortgage or rent and have found it difficult to keep their businesses open.

A large proportion of these people have turned to the Council for help and we have made sure we are able to offer as much assistance as possible.

We launched our ‘beat the crunch’ campaign which offers advice to struggling residents on debt issues and how to claim the financial assistance they are entitled to. We also agreed to pay invoices to local businesses more quickly with immediate effect.

It is worth a moment or two to reflect on what other progress we have made over the last year:

- We launched the Big Clean where residents chose 41 sites across the borough that they wanted their council to clean.
- The Council has provided well over 300 new jobs
- We have frozen increasing car park charges in 2009/10
- We have invested, and we are on track for cleaning every gully in the Borough
- We have increased recycling to around 35% from 16% in just two years
- Adult Care has regained its star
- We are on target to make over 67% of our Right of Ways easy to use
- We have provided and paid for extra police officers for our townships
- We have had the opening of the Middleton Arena
- We launched The Big Listen where youngster across our Borough had their say about the future of our town.
- And finally we have increased township devolved funds from £2 a head to £4 a head

In fact, the Audit Commission has recognised our achievements in terms of financial management through the Use of Resources Assessment where we have retained an overall level three under a more challenging inspection regime with some notable practices within Rochdale being identified.

I would go on Mr Mayor but quite frankly we would be here all night if we were to list what we have achieved over this last year.

I believe that this year’s budget represents a considerable achievement for the authority made possible through focus, prioritization and a sound service planning processes; all underpinned by excellent financial management.

It will not be lost on Members that such an achievement is made stronger, given the Labour Government’s continued failure to manage our finances nationally.

Tonight we are proposing a 3.7% increase in Council tax – the lowest for 12 years. I believe that this represents a careful balance between investing in maintaining and improving services and affordability for taxpayers.

The budget provides for just under £900,000 of priority areas.
These include:

- £250,000 for older people
- £60,000 for improvements to our gateways and corridors
- £50,000 for gully repairs

Additional revenue support will provide for a new Heywood Sports, Leisure and Culture Village, additional cemetery provision and enable townships to increase their devolved funding.

This budget will see spending of nearly £52m on housing related projects including £28m on regeneration initiatives, £3m on the provision of affordable housing, £14m on improvements to the Council’s Housing stock and £5m supporting private sector housing.

The budget includes a £1m contribution to the development of schools under the Building Schools for the Future Programme. Also other school projects provided in the budget will enable investment in IT, improving access for disabled pupils and maintaining and modernising our schools.

We have also included in our budget a comprehensive corporate efficiency plan to deliver £2.3m of savings during the year. This demonstrates our commitment to improving value for money for local residents and businesses thus ensuring scarce resources are directed at priorities.

As I have mentioned previously, due to the economic uncertainty in the year ahead a prudent view has been taken of financial risks. We have retained over £0.8m of investment funding and created a £1.6m pressures fund to support significant budget pressures that may arise.

What I am proposing for Council tonight is a budget that doesn’t contain any cuts to services, has the lowest council tax increase for 12 years and offers real value for money for the residents of our Borough.

It is a sensible budget. It’s a budget that prioritises services whilst at the same time prioritises our resident’s wallets.

We know that we have a lot of work to do to make sure our services are delivering the best value for money but we have the drive, ideas and commitment to deliver that for the people of our Borough.

For 25 years I have worked in Rochdale Town Centre and I have witnessed the slow decline of our town through a lack of vision, determination and passion. Last year’s budget was just the start in providing the vehicle for our borough’s long awaited regeneration. I urge councillors on both sides of the chamber to put politics to one side and work together for the long term benefit of our Borough.

Mr Mayor, I proudly present to you our budget.