Swansea AMs Grow Concerned Over City Cuts

Concerns were raised last night by all three Swansea Assembly Members after revelations that Swansea City Council faces a gaping budget deficit. This follows an announcement by Leader Chris Holley that street lights will be turned out to plug the Council's £17 million budget black hole.

The Evening Post revealed that non-residential street lighting could be turned off, Swansea Tennis Centre closed as well as Council Tax increased to plug the funding short fall. However, Swansea AMs Val Lloyd, Andrew Davies & Edwina Hart claimed that this could just be the tip of the Iceberg.

The three AMs have been briefed by the School Budget Forum where they were informed that if proposed cuts to school budgets were to go ahead then there could be a likelihood of heads in both primary and secondary sectors sending pupils home for part of the working week or curtailing teaching time on courses, because of an inability to fund staff and provision

Swansea East AM Val Lloyd said:

"Swansea Council has had an 1.9% increase in their settlement from the Assembly Government, yet once again they are blaming their budget cuts on a lack of resources. Quite frankly I don't think we're being told the whole story here: for example, despite an increase in funding, the Council is cutting the education budget by 0.9%".

Health Minister and Gower AM Edwina Hart added:

"These service cuts are simply robbing Peter to pay Paul. Chris Holley and his administration's financial mismanagement have been found out and time is running out for them to put their house in order. There seems to be no strategic long term planning to their proposals."

Andrew Davies, the Assembly Member for Swansea West also revealed that Children's Services in Swansea have had significant funds diverted from other Council services in order raise them out of special measures, he said:

"When the Liberal Democrats came to power they let Children's Services slide into special measures. This neglect has resulted in the Local Authority having to divert massive amounts of its budget to prop up the service. In fact Chris Holley's administration spent an additional £106 per child extra during 2008/09."

Val Lloyd added:

"As you can see they are spending way above the Wales average for this service, and have been since they went into special measures, yet still cannot deliver a quality service."

Mr Davies the former Assembly Finance Minister said:

"But in throwing even more money at Child & Family services they have clearly raided other budgets to do so. The £6.4 million extra that the Liberal Democrat cabinet member for Social Services Nick Tregoning has found to boost Child and Family Services next year has to come from somewhere. We are all concerned that Swansea's administration has lost control of our finances."

Edwina Hart commented:

"This is not an issue of throwing money at a problem in the hope it will get better, this is about effective management. Sadly this has not been the case, and continues to be so under Chris Holly and the Liberal Democrats."