Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Slash PFI costs and protect our poorest
Cuts, cuts, cuts; after 10 years of hardship, ordinary people are still paying the price for the banking scandals of a decade ago.
It’s a disgrace, especially as the guilty bankers got off scot-free.
They should be serving time at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Instead, they are still pocketing millions of pounds every year at our expense.
Meantime, everyone else has to make do with wage freezes or below-inflation pay rises for 10 years. No wonder the UK is seen as one of the most unfair countries in the world.
The austerity agenda pursued by UK governments since the 2008 crash have made matters worse.
Policies like freezing benefits are driving more people into poverty.
In Scotland there are now 260,000 children living in poverty, and in North Lanarkshire we have one of the highest levels of poverty in Scotland. Politicians at all levels of government need to urgently tackle the scourge of poverty and deprivation in our society.
Even when having to make cuts, top priority must be given by all public bodies to protecting the most vulnerable and poorest sections of our community.
Locally that means, for example, reversing the crazy decision by the North Lanarkshire integrated joint board for health and social care to privatise the home support workers’ service.
Experience tells us that privatising such services is disastrous and costs the public purse more in the long run, as we have to fork out even more taxpayers’ money to fund the profits of the private companies which take over the running of these services.
This integration board are the same people who tried to impose exorbitant charges on our elderly population for their alarm systems and day care centres. It’s time these people got their priorities right.
Similarly, the proposal by North Lanarkshire Council’s housing department to get rid of wardens in sheltered houses isn’t just stupid, it is potentially dangerous and needs to be stopped.
If the council still needs to save money after it gets the additional £10 million it has been awarded by the Scottish Government, then it should slash the costs of the private finance initiative (PFI) it used to fund new schools.
That would give the rip-off merchants involved in these contracts the cut in funding they deserve – and would prevent the need for any further cuts in essential services.