Medway Times has received a copy of the speach that Cllr Vince Maple will be making in response the Medway Council’s 2020 budget. Also there was a note that we should check it against delivery, as Cllr Maple will be at points replying directly to the contents of Cllr Jarrett’s speech. And here it is (unedited):

Mayor Tejan,

Tonight’s budget meeting finds Medway Council in crisis, with unsustainable budgets and political failings across the organisation.

There can be no doubt one of the main reasons for this is the decade of Tory austerity our country has suffered.

We know only too well the direct impacts that political decision have bought to Medway. It means we have hundreds of Medway children going to bed tonight in temporary, often substandard, accommodation.

We have people who would be sleeping on the streets tonight if it wasn’t for the kindness of local churches and charities like One Big Family opening the winter night shelters. That is alongside Medway residents who are just about surviving whilst sofa surfing.

We have thousands of people, including shamefully Medway Council staff, having to access the Medway Foodbank. Many of these people have been impacted by the shambolic rollout of Universal Credit which has damaged people and left them prey to the payday lenders.

For Medway Council staff having to use the foodbank – we can find the main reason for that pretty quickly – they are sat opposite me. Let’s not forget it was this Tory administration who decided to opt out of the national pay scheme for council staff and what did that lead to – many years of a complete pay freeze followed by more years of below inflation pay increases. But it is not only the real terms pay cuts for the past decade, it is the total disrespect for HR professionals and trade unions.

We have a shambles of a so called pay negotiation which is basically here is your below inflation pay settlement with nearly half of it going a potentially discriminatory performance related pay scheme. We then see (as we have tonight??) the Leader of the Council over-ruling his senior managers, HR professionals and staff representatives by just imposing whatever he wants on top – no negotiations, no ability for anyone apart from him deciding how that money is spent.

This is not, as the Leader of the Council would have you believe, a magnanimous act afforded to council employees due to his last minute hard work and wizardry meaning he found room in the budget. It’s simply another way to exert control over the people of Medway without letting them have their voices heard.

Is it any wonder he was so defensive at the last full council when it comes to name blindness as he thinks he is somehow not the councillor but the HR manager for Lordswood and Capstone.

Tonight, people have come out to say enough is enough and I send a clear message

The Medway Labour Group stand with you

Hard working staff of Medway Council deserve to be rewarded so they don’t have to access our local foodbank. The fact I even have to say that sentence shows how much more there is to do.

What they do not deserve is to be subject to faulty IT equipment and third quarter spending moratoriums which means they haven’t got the tools to do their job – at least until April, let alone buy staples and envelopes for their office.

All as a result of your poor budget management and lack of investment in the people who actually keep Medway running – not just the 55 councillors in this room.

Because of course, this year we have the further disgrace that whilst staff have yet another year of real terms pay cuts, the Tory Councillors voting to impose that were perfectly content to vote in favour of a 14% increase in their basic allowance.

The staff since 2010 have not had a pay rise which keeps pace with inflation – This is why Labour Councillors voted against the increase in Councillors allowances – until Medway Council staff are properly paid it is simple – if Councillor’s allowances are increased, it should only be in line with Council staff pay increases.

There may well be a wider consensus that we as councillors shouldn’t be voting on our allowances at all, but we have the system we have – and the difference is there for all to see.

So next time those Conservative Councillors are in Gun Wharf or one of the Council satellite buildings and you see hard working council staff remember you are voting tonight for them for yet another year to have a real term pay cut.

And of course, it isn’t just hard-working Medway Council staff seeing cuts. As has been well documented, until he was forced to resign by the acting Prime Minister Dominic Cummings, Sajid Javid has told all government departments to find another 5% cut in budgets. Whenever the budget finally arrives could we be seeing another example of in year budget cuts? I hope not but we have seen it before.

So what about the Prime Minister himself – of course Medway knows Boris Johnson only too well as this was one of his successive failed projects, to build an airport which would be bad for the environment, bad for UK PLC and bad for Medway.

But it isn’t just Boris Island –

Whether it was the wasted public money on the Garden Bridge,

managing as Foreign Secretary to get Nazanin’s prison sentence increased,

to say that investigating child abuse is “spaffing money up the wall”,

referring to muslim women wearing a veil as “letterboxes”,

referring to black people as “picannines” with “water melon smiles”,

referring to gay men as “tank top wearing bum boys”,

spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on a water cannon which was illegal,

saying that the Libyan city of Sirte would be luxurious for investors once they have “cleared the dead bodies away”,

conspiring to have a journalist beaten up,

deeply offensive about those impacted by the Hillsborough disaster in Liverpool,

deeply offensive about the whole country of Papua New Guinea,

ran scared from Andrew Neil, hid in a freezer to avoid scrutiny from Piers Morgan,

sacked for lying in an article and of course –

he lied to the queen in order to shut down parliament.

He is not fit to be Prime Minister and every day he is in that role is a day that the UK loses credibility.

And that credibility is essential as we look to get a deal between the UK and the European Union – because the reality is that Brexit isn’t done as we have no idea what the impacts will be at the end of the year. So make sure you hold on to your copies of the Operation Yellowhammer – we could end up back there at the end of the year.

With all of this uncertainty you would expect all councillors to want to defend high skilled, well paid jobs but as we say in January it is Labour Councillors doing all we can to stand up for Chatham Docks while the Medway Tories are perfectly content with managed decline, as we saw in the 80s with the Naval Dockyard.

Conservatives have always attempted to self-style themselves as the party of industry and business, but they betrayed the workers at the Dockyard in the 80s, and they are set to betray the local businesses and their employees at Chatham Docks with their wilful inaction. They’ve sent a clear message – they are more concerned with lining the pockets of Peel L&P, and turning Medway into a dormitory town, than they are with supporting local entrepreneurs and highly-skilled local jobs.

It’s not Medway Labour “talking Medway down” that we need to be concerned about, it Medway Tories actually doing Medway down.

And it isn’t just those 800 jobs at risk.

Last month we saw the closure of the department store Debenhams in Chatham, with many staff having worked there since the store was Allders. Our thoughts are with those who have lost their jobs.

What does the future hold for the Debenhams site – well The Trafalgar Centre just a few doors down the road sitting empty for the last six years does not inspire great hope. We see Gillingham High Street continuing to struggle, not least as it’s anchor retail site is being converted for health use.

And despite the fact that we have a Tory MP for Rochester & Strood, we still can’t seem to get a free-to-use 24-hour ATM machine installed in a high street with a thriving night life and a rich cultural heritage.

Remember last year we were misled by Conservative Councillors who said one thing about bids for Gillingham and Chatham from the future high streets fund and just a few days later the opposite happened. It shows we cannot simply trust the Tories with our high streets, or even with the truth.

And of course, there is the Pentagon Centre. Now to remind everyone, nobody was principally opposed on this council to making the purchase, but as people who respect the public purse the Labour Group urged to get three market valuations. Since council policy says “get three quotes to buy a photocopier” you would think getting three quotes to buy a shopping centre would be the bare minimum. But in their arrogance the Tories opposite me carried on with one, and what do we find a year down the line?

The income expectations dramatically slashed and the council, as reported at the recent overview and scrutiny meeting, is now looking at whether that single piece of advice was adequate.

So can I suggest that if you are going to get external legal advice to take action against the original advice, I would get three quotes to make sure at least that legal advice is good value!

It would be funny if it wasn’t tax payers of Medway who are ultimately paying the price.

And it isn’t just the Pentagon which is not making the financial mark.

Medway Commercial Group continues to cost the tax payer hundreds of thousands of pounds both in revenue costs and also the cost of the ongoing police investigation for fraud. (Nobody on this council said anything about there being no money left, but) the Leader of the Council did said he would be comfortable with MCG running everything except social services. He is wrong on that, frankly I wouldn’t be comfortable with MCG making me a mug of hot Vimto let alone run the vast majority of council services.

Before next year’s budget meeting I’ve no doubt much more detail will become available as to what has happened at MCG – rest assured the Labour Group will do all we can to ensure taxpayers money is never put at risk in this way again.

And more than ever we need to guard that public purse.

The 60p in every pound cut from Medway by the Tory government has resulted in a Council Tax increase of 45% across the towns since 2010, which means that Council Tax has increased by 100% since the Conservatives took control in 2002/3.

Instead of local services being funded through a progressive taxation system at national level, Medway’s people are being subjected to a flawed taxation system where millionaires are able to apply for cuts to their council tax bill if they happen to live alone.

This is what Conservatives mean when they call themselves ‘fiscally responsible’.

So, what is your council tax paying for exactly?

According to the Leader of the Council, there have been no cuts to services here in Medway. People of Medway – before you check your glasses for a rose-coloured tint, let me assure you that you’re not misremembering a golden age of public services.

Before austerity, we did have much more effective public services here in Medway – I can list just some of them here:

The pioneering mental health unit ‘Therapeutic House’ in Gillingham, Medway’s only Personality Disorder Unit, closed in 2015 with nothing to replace the service it provided

The Old Vicarage, an Outstanding children’s home with dedicated staff, closed earlier this year with nothing to replace it

Countless Sure Start Centres have shut across Medway, depriving young families of a local support network, with nothing to replace them

Gillingham Library, a valued community hub having its hours cut

The Annual Visitors Parking Permit which has been axed

Deangate Ridge, a much loved council leisure facility using urgency powers to shut it down to turn it into effectively a storage space and car park for Medway Norse

And a cut the number of CCTV cameras across Medway, making residents feel less safe

And now Medway Conservatives are doing their very best to shut down 147 Nelson Road, a mental health resource centre that treats some of Medway’s most seriously ill individuals.

And there are of course no plans to replace this service.

What will become of these people when they are no longer able to access the service that helps them lead as much of an independent life as possible?

If they don’t end up on the streets, family members will join the legions of unpaid carers who are neither qualified nor equipped to care for individuals with high needs.

They will be hospitalised more frequently, and lean on GP services for support, meaning even longer waits for appointments at your local surgery. Any A-Level economics student can see that closing this facility is a false economy, which means only two conclusions can be drawn. The member opposite me have a very poor grasp of cause-and-effect, or they are closing down public services for purely ideological reasons.

Luckily for Medway’s Conservatives, Medway Labour do have a plan for 147 Nelson Road, continuing to keep the service open but as a Community Interest Company, ensuring that individuals can use their adult social care personal budgets which as a council facility bizarrely they are not allowed to do so.

I would strongly urge the cabinet to consider all alternatives to closure – even if you have no humanity or compassion it makes financial sense.

One thing that hasn’t made financial sense over the past few years has been the Castle Concerts – more than £600,000 lost over the past two years. I would remind everyone that Medway Labour have been calling for this to be reviewed since 2018, not least since the decision that you can take bottles of Champagne into the Proms but somehow taking in a Gin and Tonic to watch Ronan Keating is going to mean a riot in the Castle Gardens – utterly ludicrous.

And of course, we have seen the Deputy Leader of the Council saying that he is disgusted at the fact that somebody had the audacity to become ill and signed off by their doctor. Yup, Councillor Doe effectively blaming Jess Glynne for the council’s financial position – whatever next;

Is it Lewis Capaldi’s fault that parking revenue targets haven’t been met?

Stormzy to blame for the missed targets on the Pentagon?

You can’t blame pop stars for your poor planning and failed income generation.

So tonight is yet another opportunity for Cllr Doe to withdraw his silly comment – I’m not sure being rude to Jess Glynne helps Medway with the 2025 City of Culture bid.

If however the 2025 bid was not for City of Culture but for the City of Potholes then I think we would already be the front runner. Residents across Medway continue to suffer as a result of the road conditions here in Medway.

We have the service provider using the less than adequate technique that my friend Councillor Murray highlighted previously – effectively pouring a bit of tarmac and stomping it in! This is not a good use of tax payer’s money as in the vast majority of cases this will mean workers will be back to patch up the patch up.

Another key problem when it comes to highways is the Medway Tunnel – it’s now more than a decade since the Medway Tories (at that time under the leadership of Rodney Chambers) bought the tunnel for a pound from the Rochester Bridge Wardens (at that time under the leadership of Rodney Chambers) – in that time we have seen millions of pounds of much needed resources which could have been used to fix the potholes being diverted to the Tunnel.

The Labour Group said when it was first proposed buying the Medway Tunnel for £1 was a bad deal for Medway Taxpayers and today it remains a bad deal for Medway Taxpayers.

So next time your car is damaged by a pothole in Medway remember the fault for that poor quality road lies with the Tory administration who was suckered in to buying the Medway Tunnel for a quid.

Medway Council have spent more than 11 and a half million pounds on the Medway Tunnel. So much money that could have been spent on fixing potholes, improving and creating cycle routes or frankly anything else. This is a literal money pit which we didn’t have to take on. Is it any wonder the Department for Transport has repeated ignored the calls for them to take responsibility away from Medway.

But still, Medway Conservatives propagate the myth of their own fiscal responsibility.

Once again Councillor Jarrett leans on the tired rhetoric that Labour ruined the economy when last in power. He and I both know that the global financial crisis of 2008/9 was not the result of over spending by the Labour government, but due to irresponsible financial deregulation, an overreliance on the finance sector, and sub-prime mortgages – thank you very much American bankers.

It was the Conservative-led coalition whose austerity programme resulted in the feeblest economic recovery on modern record.

Earlier I touched on the impact of austerity in terms of human life – but I could not put it quite as succinctly as the UN poverty envoy Phillip Alston who, on a trip to the UK in 2018 found that the Conservative’s austerity policy was “entrenching high levels of poverty and inflicting unnecessary misery in one of the richest countries in the world” – but surely the poverty and indignity have all been worth it for the strong and stable economic situation we currently find ourselves in as a country?

Austerity has strangled economic recovery. Since the Conservatives came into power on 2010,

Pay growth has halved while prices have continued to rise – that’s the lowest period of wage inflation since the Napoleonic Wars

Low wages and insecure work – the hallmark symptoms of a weak economy – have persisted

The deficit will be twice as large as the Conservative government initially promised

A failure to restore Labour levels of economic growth for four years

And, of course, the UK has lost its triple A credit rating

No, austerity is economically ruinous and was designed to punish ordinary hardworking people, who are told to blame everyone except those who put them in that position – the Conservative government.

I spoke earlier about the rose tinted spectacles view of “there is no cuts” from the benches opposite – the sad reality is alongside all the examples listed before, one of the worst is still to come.

I was proud to be elected to represent Chatham nearly 13 years ago, in the halcyon days where I was still in my 20’s, the biggest concerns about local government funding was that some of the money was ring-fenced rather than today’s concerns being funding cut by 60% and our wards had brilliant community wardens – someone in the heart of the community, linking directly between the council, the local councillors, PACTs, Community Groups and more widely residents. They did a phenomenal job in sometimes challenging circumstances.

With the latest proposals we see an end of community wardens being linked to wards, something which even some Tory backbenchers at Overview and Scrutiny have raised concerns. By cutting the link between community wardens and wards you are truly cutting the front line of the council from the communities we are all elected to represent.

So when we see further fly tipping taking place, further dog fowling, needles being left on the streets for longer, a lack of a council presence at community meetings – that is the price of austerity cuts in Medway.

You truly are cutting the community out of community wardens.

It would be bad enough if it was just the community wardens being lost from our wards, but at the same time we see a 110% increase in the bulky waste charge, and if your bulky waste is a mixture of metal and non-metal your charge will be going up from £10 to £42 an increase of 320%

Anyone would think the decrease previously was because there was an election on the horizon, but I’m sure nobody is that cynical and calculated.

This proposal is absolutely disgraceful, hitting in particular those who cannot drive to a local.

The combination of the change of community wardens and the 320% increase in collection of bulky waste means Medway will truly become the centre of flytipping in the South East

Of all of the things we have seen happen since the last budget meeting, the inadequate OFSTED report into Children’s Services is the most serious.

This shows clearly our most vulnerable young people are not getting the support they need – put another way their council was failing them at the time they need them to be there.

The latest follow up report from the independent commissioner states “Medway knows what needs to change but there remain significant doubts about pace and drive to deliver real improvements in the timescale that is required.”

That is not acceptable

We on this side of the council chamber want the council to retain the service as we feel the outsourcing of such a key service would send a negative message to our young people, families and the community of Medway as a whole.

But if ultimately the Minister for Children and Families concludes that the service needs to be delivered by an outside organisation then it is clear for anyone that the Leader and Children’s Portfolio Holder continuing in post is untenable.

Mayor Tejan, as we say every year – we do not vote on the budget line by line, column by column.

Therefore of course there are things in there which we agree with, not least the needed additional funding for Children’s Services – which we undoubtedly support, but would urge the members opposite to take lessons from other councils such as Blackpool, who are now investing 76% of its entire budget in Children’s social care in response to their ‘Inadequate’ Ofsted.

There are also things we are working together on a cross-party basis on, not least the Climate emergency following the unanimous support for my motion in April to declare a climate emergency.

But I suspect we will hear the same tired old nonsense from Cllr Jarrett of things we don’t support which is blatantly untrue.

We will be voting against this budget tonight because:

this council has the wrong priorities

fails to engage the public in the budget setting process

has a council owned company still being investigated by the police and costing tax payers hundreds of thousands

is failing it’s most vulnerable young people

is breaking the link between communities and community wardens

shutting mental health provision

This is not a budget we can support from a council in crisis.

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