| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Proposed closure of Wandsworth Museum | |
| Posted by: | Malcolm Grimston | |
| Date/Time: | 09/01/07 23:29:00 |
| Thanks for your thoughtful comments. Perhaps a few truisms might make a useful introduction to the background I can attempt now (while stressing again that the Committee papers for next month's Environment & Leisure Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting will give fuller details, e.g. of where the £400,000 figure comes from). There is an infinite number of nice things that a local authority might do, including charging low taxes so that people have more of their own money to spend in the way they want. But we simply can't do them all - the Museum is certainly a nice thing but if we wish to subsidise it to the tune of £10 a visit, say, we need to cut services elsewhere, put up prices or (to a very limited extent) increase taxation. Politics is a matter of priority - deciding which of the many nice things we do are in line with our vision for the area, which less so. One of the reasons why democracy is the best form of government, if not perfect, is that it creates a market in ideas - six months or so ago local people had a choice amongst four distinct political parties with distinct visions of what Wandsworth could be like. In effect those parties offered a different set of priorities - the local Conservatives have always been very clear that low taxation and excellent service delivery are at the centre of our vision, Labour promised a lot of expensive new activity with all the associated costs, and everyone had a choice. It follows of course that if we are elected we owe it to local residents to make sure they get what they voted for. That means us looking carefully at large expenditure items and asking if they fit into our priorities or if they can be delivered in a more cost-effective way. It is only right that if we don't deliver on what people are looking for from us then we'll not get reelected, and that is what will happen if we start to behave like another party with another vision. On to how proposals can be announced. As you'll have noticed, I did not contribute to this thread until it had been running for some time. I would have preferred to launch the consultation with some rather firmer plans than we have at present, but as so often happens there was a lot of speculation and indeed calls for councillors to make a statement. I decided to try to give some kind of outline to our plans, which are very different from the claims in some of the contributions to this strand, but I have been clear all along (I hope) that the details will follow soon. The difficulty with taking the opposite approach, of saying nothing until the papers were ready, is that the most bizarre rumours can gain a spurious credibility if not countered or given proper perspective within a reasonable time. So the formal position is that there is no announcement or plans as yet but there soon will be, and in the meantime I've been trying to explain the thinking in the informal setting of putneysw15.com. I have been reading the metacomments with a lot of interest but don't think a consensus is emerging as to whether I should have waited until I had more detail or spoken earlier when I had even less. In particular we don't yet have the firm costings on setting up a new library in the building (insofar as we ever have firm costings before we actually go out to tender in the marketplace and see what comes back) but will put these into the forthcoming Committee paper. The basis of the '£5 million cut' is clear - our grant is going up by 2.7%, or £3 million, but estimates of cost pressures are £8 million. Details are on http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/Home/MyWandsworth/Pressreleases/newspage_detail.htm?id=4776. If the figure turns out to be optimistic we'll need to be in a position to make more savings; if it turns out to be pessimistic we'll need to look at what our spending priorities would be across all of our services and of course balance them against lower taxation. I meant to say that a zero option across the piece is not an option - we need several millions of savings and I would be very interested in your alternative proposals and those of other people to find the £400,000 involved here. We certainly will consult to find out if there are better ways of achieving our objectives, but consultation does not mean that elected representatives have no priorities of their own - what would be the point of elections if we did not? - and therefore does not mean that we can say 'do you want the Museum open or shut' and abide by the vote. We are intending to boost the history section in the Leisure & Amenities and there'll be more details in the paper. But to summarise, yes let's have a constructive debate - not just one which says 'we don't want it closed' but 'we want other services cut instead and these are the ones', so we can make real choices. Within my political group we have been through an exhaustive process of this nature over the last few months but of course we may have overestimated the importance of some of the services we provide - if you tell us which ones we can look at making the savings elswhere. |