Lib Dem Budget Amendment to Stop Labour Cuts (Leicester City Liberal Democrats)

Leicester City Liberal Democrats <joan.garrity@leicester-libdems.org.uk>

Lib Dem Budget Amendment to Stop Labour Cuts

February 25, 2010 1:01 AM

Peter Coley with protesters outside Leicester Town Hall

Peter Coley supporting the protest against cuts outside Leicester Town Hall

The Liberal Democrat Council Group put forward a budget amendment at last nights City Council meeting to try and stop cuts that were proposed by the ruling Labour group.

They included;

Reinstate arts & festivals grants, reinstate central libraries consolidation, reinstate sports & leisure opening times, reinstate community schools budget, and the reinstatement of the cuts proposed to creches at leisure centres, Peter Coley, Leader of the Liberal Democrat group said, "Many single parents rely on the crèche facility to enable them to take part in sporting or leisure activity and without it there may be no alternative childcare provision."

The amendment also included a growth bid for Primary school IT Literacy scheme. Peter Coley said, "A laptop for all Primary school children was a commitment the current administration made to the people of Leicester in 2007. to date this commitment has not been delivered and the proposal in this years budget of £500k would only provide laptops to a small fraction of those children. This position does not change in the final year of this administration, as there is no significant investment shown for 2011/12. This is an unworkable and failed commitment which will provide no benefit to the vast majority of Primary school Children."

He went on to state, "This proposal is to delete the failed laptop scheme but retain the funding, adding significant extra resources to enable an IT Literacy scheme to be put in place which will provide £10,000, this year to every Primary school in the city for them to create a tailored program to meet the needs of their students. This could be hardware, software, specialist ancillaries, but the program must be IT led, and must meet the pupils educational needs and must be able to demonstrate a tangible benefit to the pupils."

Both the ruling Labour group and the Conservative group voted against the amendment.