David Cameron hasn’t the faintest idea how deep his cuts go. This letter proves it [View all]
Cameron complains that he is disappointed by the councils proposals to make significant cuts to frontline services from elderly day centres, to libraries, to museums. This is in addition to the unwelcome and counter-productive proposals to close childrens centres across the county. Why, he asks, has Oxfordshire not focused instead on making back-office savings? Why hasnt it sold off its surplus property? After all, there has been only a slight fall in government grants in cash terms. Couldnt the county generate savings in a more creative manner?
Explaining the issue gently, as if to a slow learner, the council leader, Ian Hudspeth, points out that the council has already culled its back-office functions, slashing 40% of its most senior staff and 2,800 jobs in total, with the result that it now spends less on these roles than most other counties. He explains that he has already flogged all the property he can lay hands on, but would like to remind the prime minister that using the income from these sales to pay for the councils running costs is neither legal, nor sustainable in the long-term since they are one-off receipts.
As for Camerons claim about government grants, Hudspeth comments: I cannot accept your description of a drop in funding of £72m or 37% as a slight fall.
Again and again, he exposes the figures the prime minister uses as wildly wrong. For example, Cameron claims that the cumulative cuts in the county since 2010 amount to £204m. But that is not the cumulative figure; it is the annual figure. Since 2010, the county has had to save £626m. It has done so while taking on new responsibilities, and while the population of elderly people and the numbers of children in the social care system have boomed. Now there is nothing left to cut except frontline services.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/11/david-cameron-letter-cuts-oxfordshire
And, as Monbiot points out, that's a Conservative council, in a well-off area. They're not actively trying to make Cameron look bad.