Lib Dem councillors trying to save Slough Council services as Labour's bankruptcy crisis gets worse

SLOUGH COUNCIL HAS BEEN BADLY DAMAGED BY:
1.    Years of Tory Government under-funding key services. This hit Slough and most other Councils across the country. Things were so bad by early 2024, that Council leaders from all parties across England combined to ask the Tory Government to provide four billion extra pounds to ensure adequate funding of services such as care for the elderly, education needs, roads, street cleaning & libraries. At national level, the Lib Dems were the only main party to support this request from Council leaders.
2.    The incompetence of Labour Cllrs who lost control of Slough Council’s finances with 6 years of unaudited accounts. By 2021 Slough's Labour-run Council was, in effect, “bankrupt”. The Government, therefore, sent in Commissioners to oversee how Slough Council was run. Commissioners force Councils to reform, make cuts to services to save money, and sell-off Council assets and use the money to help sort out the Council's financial mess. On 9 March 2022, Slough Council's new Director of Finance reported on the severe long-term measures that would be needed to sort out the mess created by Slough's Labour councillors. The report stated that from “2022/23 to 2028/29 very significant savings in the order of £20m will be required per annum in addition to further capitalisation [that means selling-off assets to help fund services].” Therefore, in 2022 officials were saying the cuts in Council services in Slough would have to go on for many years.
3.    And now, a new report from the Commissioners in September 2024 shows as the historic record is checked, it becomes clear that Labour left the council’s finances in an even worse state than first thought! The report described the work conducted to check the historical financial records, and shockingly claimed: “as a result, the future financial position has become more serious.”

THE COMMISSIONERS, WHO HAVE NOW BEEN APPOINTED BY THE NEW LABOUR GOVERNMENT, HAVE DEMANDED MORE CUTS TO SLOUGH COUNCIL SERVICES AND CONTINUED SELLING-OFF OF ASSETS.

HOW ARE SLOUGH'S LIB DEM COUNCILLORS TRYING TO TACKLE THIS TERRIBLE TORY/LABOUR MESS?

1. Getting more money for extra facilities from developers in Slough. Most councils use two schemes to get money from developers when they are granted planning permission. This money is used to pay for new facilities such as roads, health centres etc. When Labour controlled Slough Council they only used one of the two methods, and got in much less money than most other Councils. Lib Dem Cllr Asim Naveed successfully got Slough Council to agree to also use the second scheme as well as the first - Slough will now start getting more money.

2. Lib Dem Cllr Frank O’Kelly is chairing the Council’s Audit  Committee & trying to work with the professional auditors to clear-up the Labour back-log of unaudited accounts.