Effective opposition in Valley could make a real difference
A TAX on death, you say?
That’s certainly one interpretation I’ve heard this week after Rossendale council unveiled plans to almost double the cost of a burial plot in the area’s graveyards.
The reason given for this proposal by Labour councillors, as expected, was government cuts to funding which have left the council scratting around for cash to keep services going.
But to simply blame government funding cuts, which have no doubt hit Rossendale council very hard in recent years, also provides an easy scapegoat for our local councillors who need to take responsibility for the decisions they make too.
Sure, more money needs to be found, but is this the only place the council has to go, almost doubling fees for people at the most distressing, difficult time of their lives?
What makes it harder for Rossendale council to propose increases to charges is that it finds itself open to criticism for the way it handles the money it has had.
Take the Empty Homes Scandal here in the borough.
What no doubt started out with good intentions – Rossendale council running a project funded by government to renovate empty homes across East Lancashire – ended in financial chaos for our council when the contractor employed by Rossendale went bust.
Despite two independent inquiries, only the headlines – that councillors weren’t kept in the loop of the project and the fact a file has been handed over to police – have been officially released.
Even if you put aside the fact that it seems remarkable councillors wouldn’t insist they are kept informed about a project worth millions of pounds with their council on the hook for its success, it’s impossible to work out how much the collapse has actually cost our council.
One figure quoted in July was £1.4m this year, and a trawl back through council reports over the past two or three years reveals multiple occasions where funding has been put to one side to cover the cost of the project.
This point was made by Conservative county councillor David Foxcroft on Facebook this week, who branded the new funeral charges as a ‘disgrace’ given the empty homes scandal.
He also criticised the council for effectively baking into budgets an extra £500k a year in revenue from a new windfarm which the government ultimately refused planning permission for.
Making such points on Facebook is all well and good, and indeed very welcome, but true scrutiny and political opposition takes place inside the Town Hall, not on Facebook, or at least should do.
And to that end, in expressing concern about still not knowing the true cost of the Empty Homes Scandal, opposition councillors in Rossendale must surely look to their efforts to hold the council and the ruling party to account.
For example, when it emerged a councillor had received an ‘administrative penalty’ in lieu of prosecution for claiming benefits they were not entitled to, seven Labour councillors clubbed together to force an extraordinary meeting of the council to discuss the issue.
Fair play to them, they deemed it an important enough issue to hold a formal, public debate.
But why haven’t the Tories done the same for many of the issues which vex local people so much?
They could, for example, pass a motion to demand a meeting to insist on answers about how much the empty homes scandal has cost, where the money to cover it has come from and how much, ultimately, has been at the expense of funding for other services or from the council’s savings.
It could also do the same about the decision to include nonguaranteed funding – the Windfarm Windfall – in the council’s long-term budgets, or even about the ongoing problems at the taxi licensing department, where questions still remain about why Rossendale has been licensing more taxis than anywhere else in the country.
Most councillors will tell you they went into local politics to make a difference – and most do make a difference.
Effective opposition is required in Rossendale and could yet make the biggest difference of all.