PUT PEOPLE BEFORE SPIN, LIB DEMS URGE MAYOR

10.20.48am GMT Tue 12th Feb 2008

At the Council budget meeting on Wednesday the Liberal Democrat Group on Torbay Council will be urging the Conservative administration under Mayor Nick Bye to reallocate some of the money in the proposed budget to frontline services rather than bureaucracy in the Town Hall.

The Liberal Democrat Group has proposed an amendment, which proposes the following:

Reallocate £380,000 to be spent between the Children's Services and Adult Social Care. This money to be transferred from the Treasury Management budget, the Communications budget and from money that is earmarked for consultants.

That £40,000 to be spent on a rolling programme of works for parking Bays with money transferred from the Treasury management budget.

The Liberal Democrat Group have also lodged an 'objection' to the £800,000 cut to the Children's Services budget, and to the non-inclusion in the Adult Social Care budget of provision for Telecare (an alarm system for frail people in their homes - £40,000) and funding for the purchase of more equipment for clients with special needs (£115,000).

The Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on Torbay Council Councillor Steve Darling said:

"The Liberal Democrats are anxious that money should go to frontline services for the benefit of the most vulnerable people in the Bay, and not, as the Conservative Mayor wishes, on spin doctors and bureaucrats in the Town Hall."