Large crowd expected as trade unions gather to protest against Council cuts
Councillor Jonathan McColl and the Burgh Hall, where the pre Budget meeting and demonstration will take place tomorrow at 5pm.
By Bill Heaney
Unless West Dunbartonshire Council’s SNP leader has a political death wish, Councillor Jonathan McColl will tomorrow (Wednesday) toss their Budget Options document back across the table to our highly-paid officials and send them homeward to think again.
Because there is nothing new, not even a smidgeon of out of the box thinking in this document, which will cause public opprobrium to be heaped on the Council in general and Cllr McColl in particular.
It’s well seen the officials don’t have to stand for election.
The Conservatives, Sally Page and Brian Walker, and lone Independent Denis Agnew, who together keep the SNP in power here, in similar fashion to the DUP at Westminster, will also suffer next time local voters go to the polls.
Universal Credit fans and people who close libraries and deny children music lessons don’t come high on the list of those we admire at The Democrat.
Here, therefore, is a piece of advice, free of charge from this FREE, 21st century online digital platform:
Whatever you do, do nothing.
Take the First Minister at her word. She says you will have more than enough money with your annual grant and a three per cent council tax rise.
According to Nicola Sturgeon, councils will not need to make any cuts to public services.
Astonish the world of politics and state that the only measure you are inclined towards is raising the Council Tax by three per cent.
For many people that would mean an increase of about £75 a year or the price of a bag of chips every week for a year. Some would pay even less.
Anyway, it’s daft to embark on all this expensive planning when we still don’t know what is going to happen with Brexit.
And we are yet to receive information on the amount of money West Dunbartonshire will be receiving from the Scottish Government.
By making no cuts, local people would keep their jobs and the public would keep their services at the current level, which isn’t the best but is adequate at a push.
It’s just possible that the community here could have a Happy Christmas.
The 29 savings options, which the officials have put forward, have the stale odour of same old, same old about them.
They even include cutting the cash set aside for dealing with seagulls around Dumbarton Quay.
I wonder how much time and money it cost to come up with that one?
The proposed cuts in total add up to £1.717million – and include making more than 30 workers redundant in addition to 45 jobs already earmarked for the chop.
No politician in his/her right mind would agree to scrapping the care of gardens scheme – old and infirm people seldom miss casting their vote.
The Lomond and Clyde Pipe Band play at Levengrove Park.
It has even been suggested that public events hosted by the council should be axed and these include the Scottish Pipe Band Championships, held annually in Levengrove Park in Dumbarton, and the firework displays in both Dumbarton and Clydebank.
The Pipe Band Championship is one of the events of the year.
To stop or reduce gritting of footpaths in deep midwinter is another suggestion on the list.
Did no one inform the Council about the 70 people who ended up in Casualty at the Vale of Leven Hospital with injuries from footpath falls at the first sign of frost here?
The fact that Cllr McColl posed for pictures and made promises beforehand about how safe the roads and pavements were going to be must still be on the public’s mind.
Of course, putting a reduction in festive lighting on the list must also be a joke since it would be impossible to turn it down further.
As ideas go, that one is certainly not shining bright.
Would the last person to leave West Dunbartonshire please turn out the lights?
Fore is the warning shout going out to people who play the course at Dalmuir Golf Club. Keep your head down or you too will be shut down.
School funding would be cut back and street cleaning reduced from fortnightly to monthly, with resources concentrated on high-use pedestrian areas, such as High Street in Dumbarton and Main Street in the Vale.
How anyone with an ounce of political sensitivity could come up with a suggestion to “increase the number of biodiversity areas” is remarkable – especially after the uproar this caused last year.
If these proposed cuts go out to public consultation, then I cannot imagine a single person agreeing to another assault on our parks and open spaces.
Charities would also be hit with a cut or end to the 20 per cent rates relief for shops.
Would this mean that even charity shops could not afford to trade here?
The SNP leader claimed last year that the proposed cuts then had gone out to one of the widest public consultations ever.
Tell that to the Marines.
It would be kind to respond by saying they were gilding the lily and the people they actually consulted amounted to just a small handful of the 100,000 who live in West Dunbartonshire.
This fudge led to Cllr McColl having to eat humble pie and perform one U-turn after another on important matters such as time allocated to union conveners – and the grass cutting, of course.
When they meet in Dumbarton tomorrow night (Wednesday), councillors will be asked to approve a public consultation exercise on all the above savings options, and more – including withdrawing 12 school crossing patrols from locations where there are already controlled crossings in place, and introducing major cuts to the “facilities assistant” cover are the area’s primary schools.
We hope the two “lollipop ladies” at the junction of the A82 and Argyll Avenue in Dumbarton are not included. This morning in driving rain they were taking their life in their hands getting schoolchildren and adults across to the bus stop.
The facilities assistants cut would see a “mobile” team of 12 staff visiting schools approximately one day each week – significantly less than the current staffing level, which sees all the area’s 32 primary schools staffed by a full-time “facilities assistant”.
SNP council leader Jonathan McColl doesn’t speak to The Democrat. He claims we are biased.
However, this is what he told The Reporter newspaper: “The total funding provided to us through the draft settlement offer from Scottish Government is a real-terms increase and we welcome the enhanced budgets targeting new work to reduce child poverty, close the attainment gap and improved well-being.
“However, the expansion of ring-fencing and new service provision means that the effect of this draft settlement offer is to reduce the core budget the council has available to provide our day to day services.
“Between now and the spring, I and my fellow council leaders will be making it absolutely clear to the Scottish Government that our core services still need to be funded. or the potential benefits of the new service provision will not be realised.
“We want to ensure that we don’t exacerbate the very problems in our communities that the Scottish Government and the council are trying to resolve.”
- PUBLIC DEMONSTRATION – Wednesday 19th December at 5pm, Council Offices, Church Street, Dumbarton.
UNISON, the local government trade union, issued this statement: “The Government tell us austerity is over, yet at a time when demand has never been higher for our public service provision, West Dunbartonshire residents face unprecedented cuts to our much valued, relied upon and locally delivered public services.
“With an estimated £4.3m worth of cuts due to be discussed by Councillors and front line services already stretched to the limit and fast heading for breaking point, UNISON calls on as many people as possible to join the demonstration and to help send a clear message to Councillors that; the community opposes these savage cuts. OUR COMMUNITY NEEDS MORE, NOT LESS!”