Dundee Decides is a dupe

Sir, – Dundee Decides, the council’s experiment in ‘participatory budgeting’, has been presented to the public as a “really exciting opportunity” for Dundonians to determine how public money is spent locally. (“Dundonians asked to decide how to spend £1m of council cash”, The Courier, January 30).

In the context of massive spending cuts, this is far from the reality.

In the Maryfield ward, for example, the six projects competing for votes are directly related to safety or accessibility.

These include repairing unsafe stairs from Lilybank Terrace to South Baffin Street, improving hazardous pavements on Albert Street, increasing the number of dropped kerbs, and more.

This illustrates how years of harsh austerity have left the council unable to complete basic projects which would once have been addressed as a matter of course rather than put to the public to essentially determine, by popular vote, which ones should go unaddressed.

For 2018/19 the administration is proposing £15.7 million in cuts, more than 10 times the £1.2 million allocated to Dundee Decides – and this doesn’t consider the £75 million cut since 2012.

Dundee’s communities would be best served if councillors refused to meekly administer budget cuts and instead joined with local communities, campaign groups and trade unions to mount a serious, winnable campaign for Westminster and Holyrood to hand over the funding necessary for quality local services.

This is far more valuable than passing the buck to Dundonians to ‘choose what to lose’. Connor Beaton.

National Secretary Scottish Socialist Party, 19 Park Avenue, Dundee.