Suffolk County Council has now approved its budget for the forthcoming financial year.
For those who follow local politics, it’s always a big occasion.
It’s the most important debate of the year as councillors decide how the £850 million budget should be allocated, where more money can be invested, and where savings can be found.
With a backdrop of rising costs, increasing demand (particularly in our adults’ and children’s care services), and continued shortfalls in national funding, this is never easy.
This year, 77p in every £1 we spend will go on people’s services – caring for those most in need.
That means everything else we do, including fixing our roads, must come out of what’s left.
Suffolk County Council has now approved its budget for the forthcoming financial year.
For those who follow local politics, it’s always a big occasion.
It’s the most important debate of the year as councillors decide how the £850 million budget should be allocated, where more money can be invested, and where savings can be found.
With a backdrop of rising costs, increasing demand (particularly in our adults’ and children’s care services), and continued shortfalls in national funding, this is never easy.
This year, 77p in every £1 we spend will go on people’s services – caring for those most in need.
That means everything else we do, including fixing our roads, must come out of what’s left.
To make ends meet and free up money for vital services like special educational needs, we approved £46.5 million in savings.
These will be achieved through service improvements and a reduction in employer pension contributions, made possible by the strong performance of the council’s pension fund.
Alongside this, we approved a 2 per cent increase in the adult social care precept and a 2.99 per cent increase in council tax.
We never ask for these increases lightly; we do all we can to avoid them.
We know residents are facing their own pressures, but the government’s finance settlement assumes councils will raise council tax to the maximum.
If we don’t, we risk losing vital grant funding, and that would force even harder decisions.
Ordinarily, these difficult decisions would be the focus of our debate.
However, this year the Reform UK circus arrived.
Well, four of their six councillors – two didn’t show up, the recently elected June Mummery was absent and recent defector Patti Mulcahy was not there either.
This is an emerging trend for Reform UK.
In the last few weeks, we’ve had two important scrutiny meetings: one to look at the detail of the budget and recommend changes, and another to look at the success of the Gull Wing Bridge.
On both occasions, the Reform UK representative, Philip Faircloth-Mutton, failed to attend.
However, Councillor Faircloth-Mutton did attend the council budget meeting.
He, along with Councillor Hudson, decided to propose a budgetary amendment.
To try to save band B taxpayers 25p a week on their council tax bills, they proposed making some “back-office staff” redundant and a “get back to work programme”.
Only they couldn’t tell us how many staff would be made redundant, which departments they would be in, or how much any of their ideas would save.
The advice they received from the finance team was that it wouldn’t achieve the £4.6 million they needed to save and, when you make people redundant, you actually need to consult them first.
Yet they chose to ignore expert advice and chase a cheap headline instead.
We were treated to a 15-minute speech from Councillor Hudson, during which he rambled about everything but the substance of the Reform UK amendment – presumably because there wasn’t any.
But the fun was just beginning.
Straight out of the Robert Jenrick playbook, Councillor Heike Sowa decided she wanted to criticise the council’s record on transforming services.
“This council has delivered no meaningful transformation,” she bellowed.
A fair challenge, you might think, until you realise that the councillor with responsibility for transformation, until recently – before defection to Reform UK, was Councillor Sowa.
Worse still, she was sat one seat away from her predecessor in the transformation role, Councillor Faircloth-Mutton.
When this hypocrisy was pointed out, an increasingly flustered Councillor Faircloth-Mutton tried interrupting the meeting.
Actually, the council’s record on transformation is rather good, saving £82 million since 2019, and just a year ago, whilst still a Conservative, Councillor Sowa told us just how proud she was of it.
This sort of deceit and self‑reinvention is at the heart of Reform UK’s politics.
There is no better example of a complete abandonment of views than that of Councillor Faircloth-Mutton, a former cabinet member who held responsibility for the environment, net zero and equalities, and is now a devotee of the Reform UK cause.
It seems views, much like memories, are easily erased on the Reform UK benches.
This is what disturbs me most about Reform UK.
I don’t sneer at voters who are tempted by the sweets in their shop window.
The tax burden is too high, immigration is too high, and life is too hard for too many of our residents.
But the answer is not policies and politicians that deceive so freely.
Elsewhere in the country, Reform UK said they would reduce council tax only to get elected and, on every county council they control, hike it instead – by as much as 9 per cent in Reform UK-controlled Worcestershire.
They say one thing and do another.
But what can you expect from individuals whose views and allegiances change with the latest opinion polls?
I’m not, for a moment, losing sight of what we as Conservatives need to do to regain the public’s faith.
Politicians, of all colours, are not held in high regard.
But I, and my colleagues, are working hard and remaining true to our principles as we try to rebuild trust – locally and nationally.
Reform UK stand for nothing but stoking the fires of division.
They have no answers to the challenges we, and other councils, face.
The task ahead for the Conservative Party may not be easy, but we know what we believe, and we remain true to that.
