Cameron’s caring Conservatives in Sevenoaks: cutting CAB budgets while maintaining councillors’ dinners

By Bryan Harrod

At the Budget setting meeting in February 2009, Sevenoaks District Council’s Tory Leader proposed cuts in the budgets to the Citizens Advice Bureau and other voluntary groups to the tune of £10,000. These proposed cuts had already been brought down from £17,000 by members of the Labour Group during the budget formulation process.

The Labour Group decided that they would oppose these cuts in grants to voluntary organisations, which were going to need more money to service the needs of the district’s residents in the economic downturn. Therefore, we decided to move an amendment, not only removing the cuts, but adding more to the budgets for the CAB and voluntary groups.

Considering the serious nature of the cuts, the Labour Group proposed to reduce the amount of money needed from the civic budget – a category that had been totally left alone by the ruling Tories. With staff costs added onto the headline budget figure, a total of nearly £100,000 a year was being spent on civic dignitaries. The Civic Dinner alone cost over £12,000.

I moved that £15,000 be transferred from the civic budget by reducing the cost of the Civic Dinner, as well as limiting civic transport, together with the scrapping of the Councillors’ Christmas Party. I suggested that these savings could easily be achieved.

On this topic, I would expect to see the District Chairman taking a lead. I reminded members that when I was Mayor of Swanley, I had cut transport costs by 25% by doing just that. I believed that agreeing to the changes would send the correct message to the residents of the district: we care about them and want to help them.

It will not hurt councillors to tighten their belts in this way. After all, why should we be maintaining the practice of spending thousands on a few civic dignitaries and councillors while cutting a vital lifeline for those who need specialist advice, especially at a time when financial and legal advice might be more in demand due to the worldwide recession?

But despite gaining the support of all opposition parties on the Council and two dissident Conservatives the Labour amendment was lost by 27-14, with 3 abstentions. The Tories wanted to continue to have expensive dinners at Penshurst Place and a Christmas Party at taxpayers’ expense, instead of investing in services for the residents of their district. Meanwhile, the Labour Group of only four members has challenged those priorities, and is taking a lead by paying out of their own pocket for any civic events they attend.

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