On Tuesday 16 February, at Full Council, Oxfordshire County Council will vote for a
balanced budget.
The Enough is Enough Alliance speaks for over 100 voluntary sector and registered care providers, is sending four key messages directly to our Elected Members:
1
We urge you to vote against the cuts, which are inhuman, damaging to our
County’s vulnerable people and short-sighted.
2
In agreeing this budget, you are turning your back on Oxfordshire people in need
of all ages and in all parts of the County.
3
If you pass the budget, you are voting to socially isolate thousands of our
County’s vulnerable and elderly people.
4
Oxfordshire’s leaders must urgently work together better to protect vulnerable
people. This includes District and City Council leaders who have been noticeably
quiet, despite holding substantial fiscal reserves.
The imminent decision by Oxfordshire County Council, to agree wide-ranging and
damaging cuts to social care and voluntary sector budgets, will tear a hole in our
democracy. Local government is bending to national government whip and is meekly
colluding to completely demolish valuable voluntary sector resources, a decision
which will also deepen the crisis in social care, the NHS and our prison services.
The long-term cost to the public purse will be immense; the short-term damage to
lives will be horrendous.
Local government is hiding behind the legal requirement to agree a balanced budget.
We are told that the implications of not agreeing a budget are that the Council may
be removed and local government controlled from Westminster.
We ask, what is the difference?
Oxfordshire County Council is already controlled by national government.
Never has this been truer than the recent pay-off of £9m to stave off closure of a
handful of children’s centres, whilst ignoring the rest of the local pain and misery.
We believe that by making a stand and forcing a rejection of the proposed budget,
Oxfordshire’s position as a high-profile local Council will force national government to
re-think its public services policy.
