In just over a week Medway‘s Conservative Cabinet will be considering its draft budget for 2007/2008. It will include important elements such as the level of council tax being proposed for next year, and what services residents can expect to see.
This is not the place to discuss detail, but residents can be assured of one thing: Medway Council will continue to spend more in real terms on a host of services. The greatest spend will be the area of vulnerable people, and I doubt there are many of us who would disagree with that.
Sadly every single year Medway‘s opposition Labour and LibDems fail to support spending on vulnerable people. It is a shameful fact that they will ultimately have to answer to the people for.
Neither is central government exempt from criticism, as year on year more demands come down from Westminster without the money to go with it. Despite what the government grandly call its New Burdens Procedure (apparently they won‘t ask us to do anything new without the money to go with!) the burdens increase whilst the grant handed down does not match.
But Conservatives in Medway put our vulnerable people at the top of our list of priorities in terms of spending. For if we fail to look after people then who will? Certainly not Medway‘s Labour or LibDem groups.
I will betray no confidences in this column when I say that we will continue to spend more on our young children and teenagers. We will spend more on our frail elderly people, and we will spend more on those with disabilities.
These people are the first port of call for a compassionate Conservative administration when it comes to allocating money. There can be no other way.
That is not to say that we will not continue to spend increasing sums on our roads, and pavements. To spend money on an increasingly successful recycling scheme, or to spend money on keeping Medway clean.
The next budget will continue to invest in combating anti-social behaviour which blights so many lives. Once again it saddens me to write that Labour has always opposed this spending too!
But the recent residents opinion poll shows us that we are investing wisely in the areas that people want. It is work we shall continue to do.