For ten years, Slough has suffered at the hands of a Labour Council, who have ballooned debt to waste on failed schemes and vanity projects and delivered poor services despite council tax rises every year.
In more recent years, the waste has extended to staff pay-outs – the council having had more Chief Executives than you can shake a stick at, as well as numerous pay-offs on the back of poor decisions. And it is clear from many recent investigations that the council are not managing many of the contracts they have to third-parties to provide council services in the right way, and yet again therefore our money is simply going down the drain.
And then last year, they decided to borrow even more debt to buy a brand-new council office in Windsor Road – at a cost of well over £40 million. This is a building which has more space than the council need and has been bought against the direction of their own policy on opening new hubs around the borough that are supposed to be there for council employees to work closer to home. As ever with Labour, this will amount to nothing more than a white elephant that the next generation of Slough residents will end up paying for.
Even worse, when they do ‘invest’ in infrastructure, such as the multi-million-pound investments made in leisure facilities, they are not even fit for purpose. Whilst local sports groups struggle to find facilities to use, such as the recent plight of Slough Gymnastics Club, who the council have not helped at all, Labour just see the photo opportunity.
We believe that by looking to pool resources with other councils, we can deliver better quality services to residents more effectively. Many councils across the country are already doing this effectively – regardless of the politics – because it makes sense to do it.
We also believe that the council has a duty to secure and manage contracts properly, so that we know that money spent on third-parties to provide services aren’t ripping us off – and we feel there is a massive opportunity to change things at the council so that this can be achieved.
We are also committed to making sure that tax-payers are not over exposed to risk from the investments that the council makes in property. It owns more than 700 property assets, and that is rising fast as the council purchases even more land and buildings than ever, adding not only more debt but also potentially more risks. Councils should not over-stretch themselves, and we will be more balanced in our approach to make sure that taxpayers aren’t paying the bill when it all goes wrong.
Above all else, we feel it is massively important to ensure that residents get transparency from the work that the council does on its behalf. Labour have been poor at delivering this, and as a result information that should be readily available isn’t there in plain sight. We will look to introduce a new online democracy portal that will open the books more clearly and allow residents to see how their money is being looked after, how the council is spending it and what activities their elected representatives are doing.
It is clear from Labour’s record in Slough that they aren’t looking after our hard-earned council tax money well, and like any other Labour administration, are spending money that doesn’t even exist, which will come back to haunt us all in the future. This is not the value for money that residents expect from their local council.
Slough Conservatives passionately believe that there is a clear alternative – and that there are ways in which the council can deliver services and invest in smarter ways, not waste unnecessarily. It is time for change at our council, as we know that Slough Deserves Better than what Labour can offer.
