Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00for any of you to think that this is not a collective responsibility and whether
00:05that collective responsibility goes through FSWG, which it does, it then
00:10should filter back down to every single member of your groups. So collectively
00:14whether it starts there it's a council responsibility to set a budget not the
00:21Labour administration as it is and I would have said exactly the same to you
00:26when I was running the council as leader. It was how many times I cannot sit here
00:31in good conscience with Nick Sanford in the room and say anything else okay
00:36because he and I used to have a robust debate he would always say it's your
00:42it's your Conservative administration's budget not ours. It's nonsense as the
00:47chair of the improvement panel has said numerous times. It is the collective
00:52responsibility of this council to set a budget and we'd sit here or adjourn
00:59until we did. Now if you want to absolve yourself of any responsibility then why
01:05do you take part in budget discussions if you are of that mind it would be a
01:11waste of time. So the chief executive has confirmed and the monitoring officer
01:17would confirm it is the council's responsibility to do this that's all of
01:22us. It becomes the council budget when it is passed and I'm now going into my
01:2720th year of council budgets. Been there, got the video, t-shirt, done it all and
01:34I'm glad I'm not sat where Dennis is because it's exactly the same. If we were
01:40running the council we would be presenting the same budget with minor
01:43tweets because we are where we are and the financial reality is the financial
01:49reality. No budget is perfect. It's a series of forecasts that we set forward
01:56and I'm sure Dennis you're realising the very same thing that you do your best in
02:03forecasting and the team work incredibly hard at trying to put those forecasts
02:07together. There's reference that we supported the budget I'm sorry Christine
02:13I will reference you because you mentioned this that in fact your
02:16assumption by the way was completely wrong in that the Conservatives would be
02:21supporting this budget. The Conservatives have a free vote on the budget. Some may
02:26support it, some may abstain, some may vote against it. I don't know we operate
02:31in a democratic group and the fact is that's the reality and just as I and
02:38Councillor Howard signed the budget consultation document is not an
02:43endorsement of the budget then or now. We were just being grown-ups because it
02:50was the fact that we were asked to endorse the consultation. So I personally
02:56like every year whether it was the Conservative budget or whoever's budget
03:01you're never going to be happy with a hundred percent of what's in that budget
03:05but we have to make the very best of how we put that budget together and it
03:12beggars belief that we get to this point and people haven't said what they
03:16wanted to say. I heard a Councillor saying well we need more time. Why? We've had
03:22time to debate this in public and in private in our FSWG that's it's an
03:29awful name I hated it from the very beginning because the public will be
03:32going and I'll say it again Financial Sustainability Working Group where we
03:35get together we discuss the issues and we come up with our best plans but again
03:41they are not perfect and you won't be happy with everything in the budget but
03:47what is the alternative? The alternative is you come with plans and proposals
03:51that you've already run through officers to see if your alternative suggestions
03:56can be workable and I think in Councillor Ali's case he came up with
04:00some very good things for the budget and they've been incorporated into the
04:04budget. There are things that are always red herrings the Lido being one of them
04:09it takes the public's eye off the budget and the real issues like the
04:13Dementia Resource Centre that slipped by at all last year so I hope like you
04:19Christine there are no things like that in the budget and whether the savings
04:23are made or not made you are doing your best effort to make them and we should
04:28support the officers in that budget. So when we come to the vote in a moment I
04:33will be voting for the budget not because I'm wholly endorsing Dennis or
04:38the Labour Party or the Labour Party cabinet because I think it's the right
04:42thing to do for the city and residents given the financial challenges that we
04:47have and for me to sit here again and say anything otherwise when I've preached
04:52to everybody in this council chamber that you should support the budget I
04:59just couldn't in good conscience say anything else.