Posted On July 28, 2010 Leave a Comment

Consultation? What consultation?

28th July 2010 

Wednesday’s ‘Wirral Globe’ reports Tory leader Cllr Jeff Green as saying “Wirral Council is facing the same budgetary challenge as all other local authorities across the country and we must adapt.”  What a remarkable ‘U’ turn! 

Adrian has doubts about the sort of consultation the ConDems intend. Will it just be asking the people to choose between options all of which are bad - to give the impression that they were popular choices?

This apparent shift into reverse gear seems to demolish any claim that he inherited a council in which the previous administration had left him a gaping black hole!  But that’s no surprise is it?  He was extremely embarrassed at the July Council meeting when he couldn’t even get the Liberal Party  (it seems it is now a sub  section of the Tories) to agree with him on that. 

It scarcely seems five minutes since he and his Party were voicing their concerns very loudly indeed about the SAR consultation – in open halls where the public could attend.  It seems that what the Tory/Liberal Collaboration now intends is a very different scheme in which local people will be consulted not about whether to agree the ConDem cuts - but only about which of the ConDem cuts to choose from a menu in which cuts are all that’s on offer.  

On page 2 of the Globe Craig Manning’s article quotes a UNISON spokesman as saying that the staff had put together a plan that would have saved more money than the ConDem intentions and that staff are extremely disappointed.  Yet the ConDem cabinet member for Culture responds in words that could leave the reader under the impression that the unions are quite happy about the proposed privatisations.  The spokesman argues that their conditions will be protected on transfer.  Yet everybody knows that the TUPE regulations governing staff transfers are effective only at the time of transfer and can be changed soon after.  In any case it is widely anticipated that the Tory Government, supported by its Liberal crutch, will seek to weaken transfer rights – we must wait and see what their propsals will have on employment security.

The ConDems seem bound for a rough ride in the months ahead as the public begin to see just what devastation their ideologically spawned attacks on public services will wreak.

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