Leeds Labour

Politics is about making difficult decisions

The decommissioning of care home which directly impinges on many elderly and vulnerable people and their carers is one of those difficult decisions.

Many people on Leeds City Council, including myself, have an elderly parent who we want the best for. Disrupting the lives of vulnerable is not be done lightly and only after careful consideration, consultation and when all options are exhausted.

We have to balance the impact we have on current residents whilst ensuring we are capable of meeting future needs for those who will need our support in the future.

In 2011 it was recognised that doing nothing to change provision of adult care was not an option and we have made many changes since then, including decommissioning of eight homes and many day centres in Leeds.

The MBI’s position is confused. In Morley Town Hall they call for no closures at all, in Leeds Civic Hall they talk about a reprieve for only two years. Why two years? Why not one or three? With the Conservative Government cutting £314 million from Leeds what will happen over the next two years to improve the financial position of the council?

The demand pressures on adult care are around increasing by around £20m per year, there are more elderly people – and the resources of the council to meet that demand are reducing, despite the extra Osborne levy on Leeds Council tax payers raising £5.2m this year.   It is nowhere near enough.   As we all know we are increasing every year the proportion of the council spend on adult care – 40.6% this year. In 2011 when I was elected it was 30%.

This cannot go on for ever we have to take a different approach.

The better lives strategy is an alternative approach and is about supporting people to stay in their homes or ensuring they have alternative models such as extracare housing to meet demand. I believe we will be bring forward proposals early next year to invest £31m over the next three years to improve our ability to meet future demand for extracare housing.

If we do nothing for 2 years we will incur another of £4.2m of costs – then we will still be faced with the same difficult decision about decommissioning of these homes. The economics will not change.

In politics as in life delaying a decision does not help. Booting this into the long grass will not make the decision easier when it comes, it will make it harder.

We have to recognise that demand for places in our care homes is dropping Siegen Manor has an occupancy rate of less than 7O%. Only 7 of the residents in Siegen Manor are from Morley. Our remaining care homes are well run and have excellent staff but we do not have the money to invest in existing or new care new homes. Only the Independent sector can do that.

We need to ensure we provide alternatives such as extra care housing and promote good quality private sector provision.   In Morley I will work to ensure we do have good quality provision to replace Siegen Manor through the private sector or with investment in extracare.

Cllr Neil Dawson – Morley South Ward

In the past few months, we’ve seen Theresa May and her Tory colleagues talking seriously about taking the backward step to reintroduce the grammar school system. Labour understands that grammar schools widen the divide between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and those from more privileged ones and have no place in a society where every child gets the best start in life.

It’s an absolute disgrace that the Tory Government are proposing to categorise children from the age of eleven by way of a test that can easily be abused by those with the cash to do so. This dangerous strategy is underpinned by the Government’s wrongly held view that selective schools are best placed to support underperforming schools.

We know that grammar schools are over representative of advantaged pupils from families with the skills and educational background to support them. Will these grammar schools really be able to improve schools with a greater mix of disadvantaged, lower achieving pupils and the associated problems of child poverty? I don’t believe they will but luckily we know that local government has a proven track record when it comes to school improvement.

Recent data gathered by the Local Government Association has shown that local authorities have more success in raising school standards than academies or free schools. The LGA say that almost nine out of ten council-run primary and secondary schools are rated as Good or Outstanding, which is a higher number than among academies and free schools. Richard Watts, the Chair of the LGAs Children and Young People’s Board, has said that local authorities have continued to prove their effectiveness in raising school standards using their relationship with schools and their in-depth knowledge of their local areas. He has gone on to question the ability of unaccountable Regional School Commissioners to turn around underperforming schools across large geographic areas they know nothing about. I would also seriously question their ability to turn around schools with a pupil make-up of which they have virtually no experience dealing with and very little desire to gain any. and have demonstrated very little desire to gain any understanding.

Social segregation is not the answer to educational improvement, the answer is real investment and real support through local authorities who know their schools, know their areas and have the experience of delivering the best possible outcomes for pupils and teachers.

Cllr Alice Smart- Lead Member for Child Friendly Leeds

As an elected member of Leeds City Council, the biggest local authority north of Birmingham, discussions of devolution and the northern powerhouse are never too far away.

There are lots of reasons for Labour councillors to get excited about regional devolution. It has the potential to provide fiscal devolution which would enable increased spending on public transport and local health services and it would be an opportunity to give local communities more of a say about what happens to them and their area. But there are also a whole host of challenges and underlying concerns. Will this just be a token transfer of power from one set of politicians to another? Will the Tories simply use this as a stick to beat Labour councils with?

This aside, Labour can’t be seen as being afraid of devolution. Instead this is a moment to be bold, to let go and let communities shape the devolved future they want to see. Our party leadership and the parliamentary Labour Party can learn a lot from Labour in power in the north. City councils like Leeds and Manchester are finding innovative ways to make social and economic progress in spite of funding shortfalls. Leeds is the UK’s fastest growing economy and that isn’t because of George Osbourne it’s because of the Labour council. We need to empower Labour councils who are minimising the worst effects of the cuts and showing the positive difference Labour in power can make.

It’s vital that any devolution deal that is drawn up in this region or the next is more than a token displacement of powers. It is of the highest importance that any movement of power is followed by funding because ultimately, you can’t empower local councils if you impoverish them.

The principle of devolution resonates with a lot of local politicians in the north. We need local solutions to local problems and we’ve known for a long time that Westminster doesn’t have all the answers.

For the past couple of years, George Osbourne has been talking about the “Northern Powerhouse”. Despite this being a Tory initiative, I’m sure I’m not the only Labour politician, who despite myself, wanted it to succeed. I hoped that this renewed focus on northern England would bring more growth, prosperity and opportunities to our northern cities and give them the chance to control their own destinies. But the truth is that Osbourne has drastically failed to follow rhetoric with action. Labour should defend the idea of the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ because in principle it’s something our party should get behind. But we should also hold the Tories to account over their endemic failure to deliver on their promises.

Labour should be arguing for a more ambitious devolution that shapes a new relationship between citizens and the state and redefines the relationship between local and national government. We need to spend more time talking about what we would do with additional funding and powers. Regional devolution has the potential to play a pivotal role in solving the housing crisis by giving regions greater powers and freedoms when it comes to building affordable housing and Labour should be making this case. It’s not good enough for us just to complain that there isn’t enough power or there isn’t enough money. We need to show that we are the party of the north and we have the answers.

I’ve lived in northern England all my life and I’m very proud of our part of the world. I don’t believe that our part of the country is on the decline and it frustrates me when politicians talk about us like we’re the weak link. Labour shouldn’t see the north as a barrier that it needs to overcome on our route back to government but one of the strongest branches of our movement and our country. We need to stop berating the north and utilise it to make our party and our nation stronger.

Councillor Alice Smart – Armley Ward