July 20th, 2011 by Mark Rusling

The Conservative-Lib Dem government is planning to allow councils to keep all the business rates they currently collect within their areas. At the moment, business rates are set centrally, collected locally, and then redistributed from richer areas to poorer areas. Areas of greatest need get the most money.

Although there are potential gains from the government’s plan, we have serious concerns that an area like Waltham Forest will lose out – just as we did from the local government finance settlement. At the moment, we receive £58 million more funding from government than we collect in local business rates. We are the 7th poorest authority in England and Wales. Under the government’s current plans, we would lose this funding, which would hit the services we provide even more than has already happened. Every school, library, children’s centre and service for vulnerable people would be hit by this.

The government has promised that no council will lose out in the first year, but what about after then? Waltham Forest stands to be punished through no fault of our own – and all residents will pay the price. We want to know how the government will make sure that areas like ours don’t lose out. At the moment, we will all potentially pay the price for another government decision which benefits richer areas at the expense of poorer ones.

May 2nd, 2011 by Mark Rusling

A new report by the Campaign to End Child Poverty has shown that child poverty in Walthamstow is nearly double the average in England. 37% of children in Walthamstow live in poverty, against an English average of 21.3% (in the borough as a whole, 35% of children live in poverty).

The previous Labour government created a target of ending child poverty by 2020. The current government has kept that target. The report shows that, from 1998 to 2010, the number of children living in poverty dropped from 4.4 million to 3.5 million. This didn’t happen by chance – it happened because the government wanted it to happen, and created policies like Sure Start centres (now called children’s centres) to help families to raise their children free from the blight of poverty.

However, the independent report makes clear that the Conservative and Liberal Democrat government’s spending cuts are hitting areas with high child poverty the hardest. Areas like Walthamstow that need the most help are being hit with the biggest cuts.

Government funding for children’s centres has dropped by 11%, and Waltham Forest is facing a drop in funding of £80 per person. I recently wrote about the ways in which we are trying to help our poorest young residents – have a read. Our own children’s centre on Church Hill has just been rated by Ofsted as providing a good service with outstanding features, but surely they will be hit hard by the government’s spending cuts?

Conservative and Lib Dem ministers try to convince us that ‘we’re all in this together’, but it doesn’t look that way to us. People living in places like Walthamstow are bearing the heaviest load. We will continue to reform the way the council provides services, to protect residents as far as we can. However, make no mistake – the government’s children’s centre cuts will hit this borough hard.

February 15th, 2011 by Mark Rusling

The borough received the fantastic news last Friday that its case in the High Court against the government’s axeing of Building Schools for the Future has been successful. Waltham Forest had been allocated £300 million to re-build secondary schools, bringing them to the standard of our ward’s own Walthamstow School for Girls.

The council had spent £17 million preparing for the scheme. However, the new government ended the whole programme last year, without consulting Waltham Forest about the impact of this decision. The judge last week ruled that this was “so unfair as to amount to an abuse of power“.

The Secretary of State, Michael Gove, now has to re-consider his decision meaningfully, and to take into account our schools’ representations. We are not intervening with the government’s right to decide, and we know that there is no guarantee that new money will be coming to the borough. However, the judgment is an important recognition of the hardship caused by Gove’s decision, and of the need for the government to take that into account. Gove responded to the decision in Parliament yesterday - click here to listen to this.

The decision to take the government to court had been opposed by local Lib Dems and Tories, who have yet to respond to the judgment. The judge ordered that the government should pay the council’s costs.

If you would like more information on this, get in touch. Otherwise, here are links to write-ups of the story:

Waltham Forest Council

BBC

Guardian

Independent

Standard

August 25th, 2010 by Mark Rusling

The Conservative-Lib Dem government’s emergency budget will hit poorest households in wards like Hoe Street harder than it will hit richer households. The leading independent think-tank, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has analysed the budget’s tax and benefit changes and found that low income families with children will lose the most from the government’s decisions. Cuts to housing benefit, disability allowance and tax credits will take nearly £500 from the poorest families.

The IFS noted that the measures within the budget which were fair were those introduced by the outgoing Labour government. The decisions taken by Conservative and Liberal Democrat Minsters have targeted cuts at the poorest – those least able to afford them. The report concluded: “Low-income households of working age lose the most as a proportion of income from the tax and benefit reforms announced in the emergency Budget”.

We do not dispute that savings have to be made. However, the decisions taken by the Tory-Lib Dem government to cut early and deep are choices, not necessities. The Tories and Lib Dems have chosen to target the cuts at the poorest in society. The government did not have to cut in this way – it is their choice. These are not choices that Labour would have taken.

The decisions to cut in this way will hit our borough hard – no more free swimming, an ending of Labour’s massive school building programme (which led to the fantastic Walthamstow School for Girls in our ward), no more park renovation (which would have re-built Wingfield Park). The list goes on.

We will continue to work for the people in Waltham Forest, but it won’t be easy – most of our funding comes from central government. The government’s choices have targeted poorer boroughs such as our own – when we don’t receive the money, we can’t spend it. However, we will always make our choices in a fair way - a way that has not been chosen by the Tory-Lib Dem government.

January 31st, 2010 by Mark Rusling

Today, Saima, Ahsan and I visited residents in West Avenue Road, Aubrey Road and Beulah Road to hear about how we can better help you. We saw litter on every one of these streets, and picked up what we could. You told us that you often don’t see street cleaners from one week to the next.

This isn’t good enough. Street cleaning is a Lib Dem responsibility, and Saima is always in touch with Cllr Bob Belam, who is supposed to be in charge of cleaner streets. Tell him what you think of the service offered by the Lib Dems – we have been! His email address is cllr.bob.belam@walthamforest.gov.uk.

If there is anything that you think we should be doing to make your street cleaner and safer, let us know.