At tonight’s budget meeting, Sefton Conservatives voted against a 4.99% increase in Council Tax and put forward an amendment that would have seen councillors’ allowances cut by 25% to help fund additional support in Children’s Services.
Conservative Group Leader, Cllr Mike Prendergast said, “We will not support a budget that taxes the people of Sefton to pay for Labour mistakes. A £17 million overspend in Children’s Services as a direct result of Labour failings is outrageous enough, but to then ask Sefton residents to pay for it is too much.
Labour in Sefton isn’t working, it never does, and Labour have never seen a problem they can’t try and fix with more taxes, so we can’t support another Council Tax rise on hard-working Sefton residents to mask the incompetence and failings of a Labour party in Sefton totally out of their depth.”
Labour also voted against a Conservative amendment that would have cut councillors’ allowances by 25% to help pay for additional support in Children’s Services.
Cllr Prendergast said:
Tonight, Labour chose to vote against an amendment that would have seen more support provided to the most vulnerable in our borough. Instead of acting to provide more support to the most vulnerable in the borough they chose to preserve their own allowances.
They are quite happy to pass on the cost of their mistakes to Sefton residents but not accept any reduction in their own allowances.
It is also hugely disappointing to see that Labour continue to refuse to work with other parties, who supported our amendment. The whole attitude of the political leadership at Sefton Council needs to change if the situation in Children’s Services is going to improve.
