Posting on TW8 appears to put me in a minority of one amongst Labour councillors but if you (and they) forgive my presumption, I'll make a stab at an answer.Phil - 100,000 households is a good estimate and makes the sum easier, I think when last I checked it was nearer 115,000 so we are talking about £17.39 per household. But we are certainly not talking about £17.39 'per year' as the VAT refund was only a one off. So yes, the Conservatives say they would have cut the Council Tax at Band D by £17.39 this year but what they didn't say or even seem to notice is that they would then have had to put it straight back up again next year to make the books balance (or they would have to find £2,000,000 worth of extra cuts every year from then on - not a pleasant prospect).Labour put the £2m into the general balance instead ie chose not to spend any of it. It'll remain there till something important that costs £2m comes along that cannot be met from current budgets, but it will have to costs £2m not £2m every year.If we gain no other benefit, the £2m extra in balances will be there in these difficult times to buy time when we need it to protect stuff that we don't want to lose until we can find something we can.Looking at your community centre example, assuming the council's previous estimated cost of £42,000 pa to retain it were right (since debunked and the proposal dropped), then £2m could keep it open for 47.6 years or six similar centres open for almost 8 years. So £2m offers a v good level of protection if community centre budgets were all that were threatened.But the problem is that in April we were just 21 months into a 48 month programme of Government grant reductions. The Council lost £6m of grants in July 2010 but that meant £6m less in 2010/11, 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14 ie £24m less by the next local election and £6m again in every year after that. The Council lost another £9m or so in the 2011/12 settlement meaning it lost £9m in 2011/12 and the same again in 2012/13 and 2013/14 and every year after. In 2012/13 it lost another £9m and again the same repeats in every year after and so on... In total, ignoring inflation and heaps of other costs, the Council will have to cut £78m from its spending by 2014 to break even - hence the need to look at everything it does.We're clear on the priorities we've set on crime, education, jobs, homes and street cleaning etc but we're not throwing money at them, in the main we are eeking out cash that is spent elsewhere to shift more to these.As for bolstering community resources - no, the £2m isn't specifically for these and yes, the Council is barely started on looking at what there is and what it needs to do - there's a long way to go before anyone will be satisfied on this. But in October a roof will finally start being fixed after decades of leaks; and going forward our priority will be step by step practical improvements - the Council will have a good deal less but that is no excuse for not doing a good deal more.In the meantime, I hope Ian will be pleased to know, we don't need the £2m to avert library closures because there aren't going to be any.
Theo Dennison ● 4948d