Local public services play a key role in the lives of people across Wales, and it is only right that they provide top delivery and performance alongside value for money for taxpayers here in Wales.
Under the Welsh Labour Government, the people of Wales have seen crippling Council Tax rises of 168%; they have seen the WLGA warning of public ‘service failure’, and they have seen over £100m spent on golden handshakes for council staff over the last three years.
What they haven’t seen is innovative public services, open and transparent spending and value for money across Local Government.
Our motion today calls on this Assembly to note the important role the Third Sector can play in providing innovative and effective local service delivery, and highlights the importance of value for money when it comes to spending taxpayers’ money.
Local Authorities have a moral imperative to spend taxpayers’ money with prudence.
The confidence of local people in their ability to influence and shape local service delivery is worryingly low – the 2014-15 National Survey for Wales found that 59% of people disagreed or strongly disagreed that they could influence decisions affecting their local area.
Our Tabled amendments to the Local Government Bill yesterday showed our commitment to reversing this trend.
However, at present this lack of confidence is further hindered by a culture of secrecy in Local Government, now extending to the Welsh Labour Government and their shocking announcement yesterday that they will no longer be publishing Cabinet decision reports online!
In 2013-14, Wrexham Council held every single one of its Cabinet meetings behind closed doors.
Anglesey Council excluded the public from at least one agenda item in 71% of their Cabinet meetings.
A Welsh Conservatives survey found that 49% of respondents felt that their Council does not provide ‘easy-to-access information on where it spends…council tax.’
This culture of secrecy, closed doors and a lack of information must be stopped.
We are calling today for Local Authorities to provide council tax payers with a clear and accessible breakdown of how their money is spent.
We are calling for open public meetings prior to a Council budget being set, to increase transparency and enhance public understanding of how and where their council tax is being spent.
And we are calling for all Local Authorities to publish all expenditure – as Conservative-led Monmouthshire Council do.
A change in Labour’s local government culture is well overdue!
Overturning such a culture of unaccountability and secrecy is just the first step.
We need to acknowledge and utilise the valuable role that the Third Sector can play in providing public services.
The Third Sector understands the needs of service users and communities, and often have a closeness to people that public services aim to reach.
The provision of value-driven service delivery and innovative solutions by the Third Sector is invaluable; and is a resource that needs tapping into.
Effective Governments don’t deliver every service – they ensure that services are delivered.
Co-production Wales (All in this Together) have highlighted the need for a ‘fundamental shift in thinking’ in terms of public service delivery, stating that ‘the future proofing of services requires a change… breaking down barriers between people who provide services and those who use them.’
We need to provide better public services more efficiently, and offer new partnerships between government, civil society and the independent sector.
We need to give power to those working on the front line – to those who know what is best for the service.
There are lessons to be learnt from steps taken in England to improve both transparency of local government and the delivery of services.
These include:
· incentives to drive local growth, whereby councils retain 50% of money generated by business rates
· a requirement on all Local Authorities to publish expenditure over £500
· and a cut down on wasteful spending across the board
Cutting down on wasteful spending is essential, both to providing taxpayers’ with value for money and for increasing confidence in the way public money is spent by those that represent them at a local level.
Welsh taxpayers will be shocked to learn that redundancy payments by Local Authorities have risen by almost 50% in the last twelve months; and that over £100m - £100m! – was spent on golden handshakes for council staff across Wales over the last 3 years.
This kind of spending flies in the face of Labour’s cuts to the local government budget that have forced councils to seek efficiency savings, and I do have concerns that this outrageous figure could be just the tip of the iceberg if Labour press ahead with their botched plans for council mergers.
It is little surprise that the public has lost confidence in the Welsh Labour Government’s ability to deliver local government reform.
Our policies to restore public faith in the delivery of public services – through utilising and increasing the role of the Third Sector, and through operating true and proper open and accountable government – will reduce wasteful spend by councils, and enable us to pass this on to council taxpayers through a council tax freeze.
Under Welsh Labour’s failure to freeze council tax, households have been left £546 worse off over the course of the Fourth Assembly alone.
Since Labour came to power in 1997, council tax bills have risen 168%, and we have had little reassurance that they won’t rise again.
The Minister has highlighted that the local government settlement ‘is not the only’ funding stream for councils in Wales; and I wonder whether today he would confirm that this indicates his contentment with further council tax rises across Wales?
Certainly, neither the Minister not his predecessor, has made any indication as to how high council tax would have to rise before they would even consider using their power to cap council tax increases.
Now, the First Minister has said that he cannot see how a council tax freeze would ‘help the local economy’, but I put it to him today that the people of Wales know best how to spend their own money.
· The people of Wales would not have lost £15m of their own money, as the Welsh Labour Government did through the Regeneration Investment Fund for Wales.
· The people of Wales would not have awarded grant funding to a charity which had not applied for it, as we saw this week with ASCC and Autism Initiatives UK.
· And the people of Wales would not have paid out £100m over three years in golden handshakes ‘for the boys’.
The people of Wales know best how to spend their money – in our Welsh economy – and a Welsh Conservative government would ensure that they would have money in their pockets to spend.
A council tax freeze would have saved households £201 in the current financial year alone!
Now, that may be small fry to the Minister sat in his office up on the 5th floor – indeed his party in Westminster have called council tax freeze a ‘gimmick’ – but I assure you Minister, it is a significant sum to many of our households, the length and breadth of Wales – this is our policy commitment, and it is not a gimmick!
I urge Members to support our Motion today:
· to support open and transparent spending of public money,
· to support the role of the Third Sector in providing vital public services,
· and to support giving back to the people of Wales – who have put up with so much incompetent spending of public money by the Welsh Labour Government – giving them back money in their pockets!