I am sorry that, in a desperate attempt to prop up the chances of Labour candidates in May's local elections, county councillor Barbara Gatehouse misrepresents the intentions of the Conservative group's budget (Oxford Mail, April 5).
Unfortunately, she was absent from the county council meeting in February when the Conservative proposals were agreed, so she did not hear my explanation of the thinking supporting our budget.
The Conservative budget invested in four separate strands of increased funding for social care for adults: 1. A one-off investment of £2m over two years for policy initiatives 2. £1.2m ongoing for additional services 3. £1.8m ongoing from 2009/10 for the costs of additional clients 4. £4m added to the capital programme for improved day centres and extra care housing.
We undertook to review the contingency allocation for social care in later years when policy changes to provide more services to allow people to stay longer in their own homes had been implemented, then to evaluate the impact of these changes on the number of clients requiring residential care.
If increased funding is required, we have more unallocated money than the other political groups in our medium-term financial plan and will be able to meet the demands of the service.
Similarly, we will review the allocation for waste disposal fines imposed by the Labour Government when a more accurate figure for the amount of domestic waste going to landfill can be calculated following the expected increase in recycling rates.
It is hardly the short-sighted budgeting described by Mrs Gatehouse when you consider that we have also delivered on our council tax promises and introduced free parking at the two park-and-ride sites controlled by the county council to encourage greater use.
Voters in the May elections are more likely to reject Labour candidates due to Gordon Brown's income tax increase on low paid workers (by removing the 10p rate), by his mishandling of the Northern Rock crisis which has undermined house prices and the ability of first-time buyers to get a mortgage, and the silly and unwise remarks from Hazel Blears, his Cabinet colleague, in denigrating the people of Blackbird Leys.
Charles Shouler,
Cabinet member for finance
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