Dundee Needs a Better Deal

On Monday evening Dundee City Council's Policy & Resources Committee looked at the forthcoming budget process.  A paper was produced which showed that the council needs to find a further £15.7 million of savings this year.  This is on top of the something like £100 million which has been taken out of the council's budget over the last ten years or so.  The report can be found at pages 1-9 here.

The Labour Group felt that the paper only told us the facts of the situation and that we needed to make clear that we did not think that we should meekly accept more cuts for Dundee.  We continue to support COSLA's viewpoint that we need a fair settlement for local government and that this settlement isn't fair.

Therefore on behalf of the Labour Group Kevin Keenan put forward the amendment below:

'That Committee believes that the detailed settlement laid out in the report does not represent a fair deal for the people of Dundee or for local government in Scotland as a whole, notes that there is no current majority in the Scottish Parliament for the budget, resolves to stand by the cross party stance set out by COSLA and in doing so make joint representation across all political groups on the council to the Finance Secretary and the leaders of all parties in the Scottish Parliament ahead of the next budget vote calling for a fair deal for local government funding in order to avoid damaging cuts in local services. '

We were very pleased to see that the amendment was accepted by the entire council.  I spoke in the debate and pointed out that this was not about party political point scoring but rather was about doing what was right for the people of Dundee.  It is easy for politicians and political activists to make barnstorming speeches about the faults of others but we must be clear that the issues here about real people with real problems.  For example, there are people in Dundee using foodbanks; there are people in Dundee sleeping rough and there are people struggling to heat their homes - these (and many others) are the people who need Dundee City Council to get a fair settlement.  These are the people who need the council to provide services for them.

We should be clear that the days when we can say that there is fat to cut from councils were probably never true and they certainly aren't true now.  The proposed cuts will have a detrimental impact on communities and on the economy of Dundee.  If a company with  a turnover of £15.7 million was threatening to close then there would be much hand-wringing from politicians and campaigns would be started to stop the closure, well these cuts to Dundee City Council's budget should be treated in the same way.

I was pleased that Dundee City Council spoke with one voice about this important issue on Monday night, now we need action at Holyrood which gives Dundee a better deal.