My speech to the Vale of White Horse District Council in response to the Lib Dem budget:Not much has changed in the last year, except things have got worse. In 2008 I spoke about the three Cs that represented last year’s budget: Cowardice, Chaos and Cuts, this year there is a fourth C – Confidence, or rather a lack of it.Yes, the Council has suffered like everyone else during the recession, but at a time when confidence is the most valuable commodity in the market place, I doubt that many people can have confidence in the Liberal Democrats at Abingdon.We all know that there are outside pressures on our budget such as reduced investment income, but in the bad times even more than the good it is vital that we live within our means, just as our constituents have to. To use the words of an American congressman:“Balancing the budget is like going to Heaven. Everybody wants to do it, but nobody wants to do what you have to do to get there.”Yet with so little money coming from central government the Lib Dems are proposing an increase in the budget by one point six million pounds (£1.6m). This raises three questions: What are we getting for our money? How are we paying for it? and how confident are we that it can be delivered?What are we getting for our money?Precious little seems to be the answer. Despite the increase in expenditure, what new services do we see? Well I’m sure our constituents will be very pleased that the Lib Dems are spending twenty thousand pounds (£20,000) on improving their offices, and thousands more entering into the Times Newspaper Best Council survey, and on replacing a reliable email system with a much more dubious one. I wonder what confidence the back-bench members of the Party opposite really have in these proposals. I hope they will being going back to their electors and explaining why the Council taking part in a survey organised by a national newspaper is more important than funding a domestic violence outreach programme; and why moving their own offices around is more important than maintaining public conveniences and funding housing advice during a crisis in the property markets. I hope that next time they are complaining about CCTV coverage in their wards, they will remember that they are the ones voting to reduce the operator’s hours. I hope they will remember that next time they are arguing that we should secure more Section 106 money from developers; it is they that failed to recruit the officer intended to secure this money, and are they who are now voting to scrap the post. I hope that when they are asked what the Council is doing to help the local economy through recession that they will tell the public that they voted to cut economic development and partnership grants by more than £10,000. The decisions we take this evening have consequences, and although I know that Members opposite will vote blindly to support this budget, they should hang their heads in shame whilst doing so. How are we paying for it?It would seem we are following the dubious example of Brown and Darling. We are borrowing from the future. We are not just dipping into our reserves, we are delving deep. This year we are taking one point seven million pounds (£1.7m) out of reserves. If the Medium Term Plan is to be believed, and I am yet to be convinced, next year we will be within seventy five thousand pounds (£75,000) of the legal minimum for our reserves. Bearing in mind the Council is eight hundred thousand pounds (£800,000) overspent on this year’s budget one does wonder if the Lib Dems will be able to stay within such a tight margin. Yet again Council Tax increases by nearly five percent (5%) and it is proposed that it will do so for the length of the medium term plan, this, at a time when inflation is declining and likely to turn negative shortly. We know all of the old arguments about the low level of Vale Council Tax compared with the rest of the country. Indeed the Lib Dems have boasted about this for years. They like to claim the credit for the legacy left by this Party whilst doing their best to tax people to the highest level they can get away with. Comparisons with other districts simply don’t hold water. Our residents live here, they pay the Council Tax we set, it is the increase that we impose that they are concerned with. No more can they hide behind their calls for fairer taxes, their party has gone cold on the idea of scrapping council tax, and from the time I joined this Council to the end of the Medium Term Plan they hope to get away with increasing taxes by more than sixty percent (60%). This is not an example of responsible stewardship of public money, this is evidence of a spend thrift attitude of a Party unwilling to take the difficult decisions necessary to deliver value for money services that people need.How confident are we that this can be delivered?The public, as well as Members, should be convinced that the Lib Dems can deliver on their promises. Sadly the truth is that this year’s budget shows much evidence to the contrary. In the current year we are eight hundred pounds (£800,000) over spent. In this budget proposal there is nearly fifty thousand pounds (£50,000) to compensate for budget errors and for an inability to deliver on last year’s savings plans. The Lib Dems boast about their commitment to tackling climate change and saving energy costs, yet this commitment is shown to be worthless. The Medium Term Plan claims that savings of eighteen thousand pounds (£18,000) will be made by reducing energy cost, yet this is only half of the increase expected in utility bills. In short the Vale will be paying more than twenty one thousand pounds (£21,000) a year more for energy. The Carbon Management Plan approved by the Executive this month is full of worthy plans, and yet will run out of funding in just two years time. Perhaps the Vale has been turned into the re-elect Evan Harris fund? Again the biggest capital project proposed this year is in Abingdon - the Lib Dem stronghold is to receive three hundred thousand pounds (£300,000) of capital money over the next two years, the cost of the Abingdon Partnership has increased nearly three-fold to sixty thousand pounds (£60,000) from that which was proposed just a few months ago. I am sure Lib Dem members outside of Abingdon will have just a much pleasure in explaining why their wards are not receiving some of this money as they will in arguing with their colleagues over where the Vale’s extra housing will go.In the summer, we were told that the savings of three quarters of a million pounds (£750,000) from the Shared Senior Management Team would be split 50:50 between the Vale and South Oxfordshire. Yet this proposal was rushed through at such a pace that it was only after the agreement was signed that it became clear that it is actually South Oxfordshire that have taken the lion share of the savings. Yet again, despite warnings from this Party, the Lib Dems have misled people and let them down.A year ago this Friday we raised concerns in this very room over a problem that seemed to be developing over the collection of payment for the Council’s brown bins. At the time the Executive Member, Cllr Hannaby said, and I quote from the minutes “she was not aware that there was a £40,000 deficit”. Well she was certainly aware once we had raised it, and yet it has taken a year until we are finally at the stage where a review has been set up to, and I quote again from the report, to “quantify any under-recovered income”. This review itself is behind schedule. With inspiring and incisive leadership like this is it any wonder that there are doubts over the competence of this council’s political leadership?So back to those three questions. We Conservatives know where we stand. What will the back-bench members opposite tell their constituents tomorrow when they ask: What are we getting for our money? Less than you were before. How are you paying for it? By taxing you more and borrowing from tomorrow. How confident are you that this can be delivered? With our track record? Not very!