by Ian Shires on May 18, 2015

Walsall remains in a position where no one Party has overall control following the Local Elections on 7th May.

The make up of the Council is as follows. Labour remain the largest group with 27 Councillors. The Tories are next with 25 followed by UKIP with 3 the Liberal Democrats with 2. There are 2 Independents and 1 Democratic Labour.

The Tories did not win enough seats on the day to win a majority so do not have a mandate to take control of Walsall Council so where do we go to from here?

For the smaller groups doing nothing is not an option. Doing nothing means that you abdicate your responsibilities and allow those who do vote to make the decision for you. Not a good place to be.

The question for the smaller groups including the Lib Dems is who would you rather see running the Council?

Would it be in the best interest of the Borough to have a Tory Council implementing a Tory Government’s Cuts agenda? The Tories have promised a further £12bn reduction in Welfare support along with where are they going to find the £80bn of unfunded promises they made in order to persuade people to vote for them nationally? Past experience shows that that money will come straight out of Local Government. That’s on top of the cuts Local Government still needs to find by 2017. In Walsall’s case this is £69 million!

Would you trust a Tory administration at Walsall Council House to fight for fairness in how further harsh austerity measures are applied to services across the Borough? That is the question we, as Liberal Democrats along with the 3 UKIP, 2 Independent and 1 Democratic Labour councillors need to ask ourselves in the run up to the Annual Council Meeting on Wednesday 3rd June.

As we have already said doing nothing is not an option

In coming to a decision we also need to take into account the actions of the Tories nationally since winning unexpectedly the election even though they only had 37% of the popular vote. Given their rhetoric in the run up to the General Election you would have thought that their first thoughts would have been how they were going to deal with the economy to bring it into balance then profit during the lifetime of the new Parliament.

That has not been the case. Instead there has been a lurch to the right with action planned to get rid of the Human Rights Act, bring in the Snoopers Charter and bring back fox hunting and yet more changes to the Education system.

With neither the Tories nor Labour having a working majority on Walsall Council the status quo should prevail. As a result I am recommending that the Liberal Democrats don’t vote for a change of Leader of the Council. Having said that, Labour need to accept that the new Council would have to reflect the changes that have taken place.

For the Liberal Democrats to vote in favour of the status quo we would need to see changes which would make the Council more democratic, more open and transparent.

The current Cabinet and Scrutiny process is biased towards a strong Cabinet weak Scrutiny model. This would need to change to reflect the new situation. There would need to be a radical shake up of the Scrutiny Process giving it greater powers to hold the Cabinet to account. Cabinet should recognise the enhanced role of Scrutiny by ensuring that important decisions of Cabinet are first passed through the Scrutiny Panel.

There are a number of other important issues which need to be agreed to enable the status quo to be maintained with Liberal Democrat support. These are as follows:
•Devolution of power from the Centre to the Districts giving residents more say in how money is spent in their area.
•Address the health inequalities which have existed for to long in the Borough by linking devolved budgets to reflect need through the Marmot Objectives.
•Build capacity within the voluntary sector to enable it to take on those services the Council will no longer be able to deliver.
•Protect assets such as Libraries and Children’s Centres by combining them to form Community Hubs to act as a focal point for access to services from the Council and its Partners

These important issues will form the basis of any discussions the Liberal Democrats have with the other Parties. Political and personal differences should be put aside in order to find a way forward which is in the best interests of the people in our Borough.

Councillor Ian Shires

Liberal Democrat Group Leader