Liberal Democrat Budget Proposals 2010/2011 (Bradford Liberal Democrats)

Bradford Liberal Democrats <info@bradfordlibdems.org.uk>

Liberal Democrat Budget Proposals 2010/2011

February 9, 2010 3:44 PM

Pound signs Bradford Liberal Democrats have revealed their budget plans for next year.

The key priorities for the Liberal Democrat budget is focused on our key priority areas - education, care for vulnerable people, and using regeneration to improve people's life chances.

Our underlying principles is arriving at our budget proposals is that they should be fair, focus on closing inequality gaps and show the link between the tax raised and where it is spent.

In our first area of priority is service to Children and Young People. We have increased base revenue spending by:

• £300,000 to support the work of Family Centres

• £360,000 to recruit and support an additional 15 foster carers to meet the additional demand

• £500.000 to Recruit an additional 12 qualified social workers to meet the increasing number of looked after children

• £250,000 to fund a pre-school language development programme aimed at closing the achievement gap of children in the early years.

• £1m to support the transition of services to schools from Education Bradford to the Council

We have rejected the proposal to cut the school clothing grant.

Adult services

£1.5m to support the additional demand for care provided to vulnerable people and the increasing number of people with a learning

Regeneration

£607,000, which is the interest on the money the Council loaned for the Jury's Inn site, for capital feasibility as soon as the Regeneration Board is in place and a clear agreement has been made on priority schemes which have political support.

It cannot be right that there are about 7000 empty homes and about 9000 families looking for a home in the district. The recession has all but halted new building and changing financial circumstances means that many people y cannot afford a mortgage.

To pay for this we propose to charge the Council Tax on empty homes and holiday homes. People who wish to maintain two homes can of course continue to do so but they will have to meet the tax liability on them. This will provide a windfall to the council of approximately £3 million and an on-going increase in the council tax base of £250,000.

We would invested this money in visiting and advising empty home owners on their options. Providing a legal adviser to support owners to move forward in selling their empty home, supporting the Overcrowding Pathfinder Programme and £1125 per dwelling to improve and contribute towards the rent bond guarantee scheme.

The scheme will have a £10,000 publicity budget to improve information to the majority of empty homes owners want to bring their home back into use. and £500,000 for each of three years to purchase empty homes through negotiation or enforcement and contribute to the getting them up to decent homes standard.

We will ensure the Disabled Facility Grant and Facelift programmes and enable the Council to take advantage of carbon reduction and energy saving schemes aimed at helping those people who are having to choose between eating and heating.

We have also increase base revenue funding to area committees to ensure that Councillors have access to funds specifically to support the delivery of area action plans.

We have proposed that there is no increase in allowances paid to members regardless of the outcomes of decision of staff salaries.

This budget requires a Council Tax increase of 1.87% to support the level of increasing demand for service from Children and Young People and Vulnerable Adults.