Liberal Democrats Budget Plans for the County - Investing for the Future

9.11.00am GMT Wed 27th Feb 2008

Cllr. Brian Hoare

Brian Hoare, Leader of the Liberal Democrats on the County Council has announced the Liberal Democrat's Alternative Budget to the Northamptonshire County Council.

The theme is "Investing for the Future - Tackling the problems of Tomorrow." The Liberal Democrats proposed investments in a number of areas which the Conservative Administration has ignored and yet there are growing problems that need to be tackled. These investments will help the very young to get a good start in life and also ensure if they attend a failing school they receive additional help. The budget also recognises the need to provide facilities for young people so that they are not temped into anti social behaviour which blights many communities. This would be supported by new investment to introduce Community Justice Panels across the county to enable local residents to determine sanctions where non custodial sentences are required.

The Liberal Democrats also proposed additional expenditure on Foster Carers Allowances, and a School Improvement Fund to tackle failing schools,

These will be financed by reducing by one million pound the contributions to the council's capital reserves and by raising the Council Tax increase to 4.75% (the same percentage increase as the government grant.)

In addition the Liberal Democrats proposed to remove some of the Cabinet Positions and use the money saved to improve the Council's Scrutiny functions.

Commenting on the budget proposals Cllr. Brian Hoare said: "Our alternative budget is tackling the problems of Looked After Children, Young Parents, offering additional Youth Services to combat anti-social behaviour, setting up Community Justice Panels which have been run in various parts of the country to tackle local crime problems, and helping those failing schools who are finding it difficult to cope with the pressures of the numbers of children with Special Educational Needs, and English as a Second Language."

Cllr. Brian Hoare added "This is a very difficult budget to produce because of the County Council's precarious financial position. We have therefore found it very difficult to make as many changes as we would have liked to. But we believe that we have put forward a package of changes to the main county council budget which tackles some of the underlying problem facing the county.