LIVERPOOL Labour council’s plan to get an all-party agreement on how to make £50m of spending cuts next year has been sunk after both the Lib-Dem and Green groups refused to be involved.
Both parties said no to the offer, with the Lib-Dems warning that bowing to the administration’s demands for all involved to commit to stay the course amounted to a “suspension of democracy”.
The Greens, too, announced their decision not to take part, adding the experiment had “been tried but failed” while planning for this year’s £90m cuts.
The news means now only Cllr Steve Radford’s Liberal Group of three members is fully signed up to the joint working.
In a letter obtained by the Daily Post, Lib-Dem leader Cllr Keaveney told council leader Cllr Joe Anderson that his demand that all parties commit to stay the course amounted to an unacceptable “suspension of democracy”.
Cllr Keaveney wrote that: “We do not believe it to be realistic to ask any party, or any individual councillor to sign up at the beginning of a decision-making process to all the outcomes, whatever they may be.
“This effectively asks people to ignore strongly-held opinions, as well as the opinions of the people they are elected to represent.”
She added: “We intend to ask probing questions and, when we think a decision or potential decision is wrong, to say so.”
The Lib-Dem group, under former leader Cllr Warren Bradley, abandoned its commitment to a joint budget process on the morning of the meeting of the full council where the budget was to be approved.
Green deputy leader Cllr John Coyne wrote in a blog piece headed “Never Again” that his group would not be joining the process but would still move amendments if necessary once Labour had come up with its cuts strategy. Cllr Coyne added: “We are not going to go through what was attempted last time.
“But we are not going to capitalise on the difficulty the council faces. We recognise fully the continuing budget crisis and that options are limited.
“We are not going to blame government cuts on the Labour council, but we tried this last year and it failed.”
Labour deputy leader and finance chief Cllr Paul Brant said: “It's an abdication of responsibility. We are facing some of our most difficult financial times, we have offered to put aside political differences, and it's a real shame that offer has been thrown back at us.
“They've suggested putting amendments at the final budget meeting, but, really, the hard work is the weeks and months running up to that, and by then it's difficult to alter one aspect of it without unbalancing the whole budget.”
