A FUTURE FAIR FOR ALL

A FUTURE FAIR FOR ALL

Issue
On Saturday the Prime Minister set out the clear choice for voters at the coming election. Key points
In the months ahead, the British people will make a big choice about the kind of future we want for Britain. A choice between creating a future that is fair for all, or a change that puts the recovery at risk, threatens public services and makes life tougher for families.
Labour will create a new age of aspiration - a future fair for all.
We must secure the recovery - not put it at risk.
We must support new industries and future jobs.
We must protect frontline services - not cut them.
We must stand up for the many - not the few.
The Tories threaten an age of austerity - a change you can't afford.

SECURING THE RECOVERY
Faced with a global recession and the worst financial crisis in 60 years, the British people were not prepared to let the recession take its course - and neither were we. We chose to fight back with bold action to protect homes, jobs and businesses.
The action we have taken together is working - the rates of job losses, business failures and home repossessions have been a lot lower than in the Tory recession of the 1990s.
Now we must maintain support and lock in recovery. It would be a huge mistake to cut support now and put the recovery at risk.
Labour will continue supporting families and businesses, strengthening the recovery and promoting jobs. When growth is secured, we will halve the deficit over four years and we will do it fairly. The Tories are a change you can't afford:
The Tory plan for immediate cuts would choke off the recovery - leading to a decade of low growth and austerity.
The Tories have shown where their real priorities lie by committing to an inheritance tax cut which would give £200,000 to each of the 3,000 richest estates in the country.

PROTECTING FRONTLINE SERVICES
Labour will protect frontline services. We will give guarantees of high standards to everyone - not just the few.
In the NHS we will create legally binding guarantees for all patients including one-week cancer diagnosis. And we will create a new National Care Service with free personal care for the elderly with highest needs. As a starting-point, we will offer free personal care at home for those with the highest needs.
In education our plans will see us give every child the guarantee of a good education. We will offer catch-up tuition so that all children leave primary school secure in the 3Rs, and a right to a sixth-form, college or apprenticeship place for school leavers. Parents will be offered guarantees of a good school, with good discipline properly enforced, and we will introduce school report cards giving parents full information on their choice of local schools - including other parents' views.The Tories are a change you can't afford:
The Tories would scrap Labour's two-week cancer referral guarantee; the 18-week treatment guarantee; and the four-hour A&E waiting time guarantee. They offer gambles not guarantees for millions of people across Britain.
Tory plans would take money from existing schools to create new cut price schools, often in rented office blocks and without proper sports facilities.

STANDING UP FOR THE MANY
Labour will help families to balance work and family life, give their children the best start in life, and feel safe and secure on their streets and in their neighbourhoods
With Labour there will be a Sure Start centre in every community - 3,500 will be open by March this year. And free entitlement to a nursery place for every three and four-year-old will be extended to 15 hours a week - up from 12.5 hours this year - with 10 hours a week for 65,000 two year olds by 2012.
Labour will continue to support the police force, protecting frontline policing and giving new guarantees on response times and a pledge that your neighbourhood policing team spends at least 80 per cent of its time on the beat in your community.
Too often a few problem families can cause havoc in our communities, so we will increase the number of families given intensive, hard-edged support.
Every time a young person breaches an ASBO, an order will be put on them and their parents. If it's broken there will be tough sanctions against the parents.
We will crack down on alcohol-related disorder, including giving councils the power to ban 24-hour drinking.
A firm but fair system for immigration. Our Australian-style Points-Based System will ensure that only those with the skills that we need to build a stronger economy can come here.The Tories are a change you can't afford:
The Tories' plans would mean cutting the Child Trust Fund, Child Tax Credits and Sure Start for families on middle and modest incomes.
The Tories would make it harder for the Police to use DNA evidence to catch and convict criminals, including suspected murderers and rapists - putting the public at greater risk.

NEW INDUSTRIES, FUTURE JOBS
Following the global economic downturn, we know that the economy needs to be re-balanced. As the world changes we will need to compete in new sectors which will grow rapidly in the years ahead.
Labour is investing £5 billion to help people back into work. We will guarantee a job or training place for all 18-24 year olds out of work for six months.
Labour will support industries where we have key technology strengths such as advanced manufacturing, low carbon, life sciences and the creative and digital industries to create jobs and opportunities for British industry.
We believe there is an active role for government to ensure that UK manufacturing succeeds in the future. The Strategic Investment Fund, worth £950 million, is already providing investment in advanced industrial projects. We need to build on this success. The Tories are a change you can't afford:
The Conservatives refuse to support Labour's £5 billion investment in helping people back to work. They offer a gamble - not a guarantee - to young people out of work.
The Tories have shown time and time again that they have no credible plan for growth, refusing to set out how they would build a stable economy. Their incoherent proposals would threaten business and jobs across the UK - they really are a change that people across Britain just can't afford.

BUDGET LETTER TO ADVERTISER

Dear editor,

Thank you for publishing a council response on your website to last week’s article (February 4) about the children’s services budget.

We did provide a council statement to this story which unfortunately missed your print deadlines.

For those readers who may not have chance to see this online, I include it again here.

I trust you will help to inform residents by making this available in your paper also.

"We do have an overspend in this year's budget which we will manage effectively so that it does not affect crucial services next year.

"A big part of this has come from the duty of placing children with special needs in the most appropriate provision.

"These placements can be more expensive than the government funding we get each year which means overspends are hard to avoid, but necessary in the best interests of the children of this city."

Your story also noted that cuts to youth workers were being made and I’d like to reassure readers that there are absolutely no plans, in no shape or form, to cut these posts now or in the future.

Yours
Councillor John Warmisham
Salford City Council’s leader member for children’s services

No rise proposed for council tax rates

Salford residents will not be asked to pay more for their council services this year if a zero per cent rise in council tax is approved by councillors.The no-rise rate for the council's element of the bill will not impact on frontline services paid for by the authority's £220 million budget, say finance chiefs.In 2008, the council announced a major efficiency drive aimed at saving £20 million in three years. This is on course to save more than £30 million, with £16 million annual savings after that.Savings were identified by removing duplication, using better economies of scale and making more use of technology.As well as lower costs in its daily delivery of service, better efficiency enables the council to operate with fewer people. Voluntary redundancies, early retirements and natural turnover have already meant the council is more than halfway to its reduction target of 380 posts.In December, the Audit Commission said the city council was "performing well" and was a good manager of taxpayers' money.The commission scored the council three out of four for performance and financial management, one step short of an overall "excellent" rating.Councillor Bill Hinds, who is responsible for the council's finances, said: "The council is much more efficient today than it was even two years ago and this is why we are able to pass on the savings to residents. On top of our efficiency drive we have improved our council tax collection rate which gives our residents much better value for their money."Despite the challenge of a global recession we have avoided dipping in to our reserves as much as we feared and will balance the books again this financial year with more than £9 million in hand.""I can reassure residents that frontline services or the overall quality of services will not be affected by the savings we are making."Leader of the council, Cllr John Merry added: "Residents will have faced a tough few months with the recession and I have always said the council would do what it could to offer real assistance."Not asking for more council tax than we have to has always been our starting point when we draw up our budget proposals. This year we are in a position where we can share with residents the savings we've made and I'm sure every little helps."Over the past 11 years Salford has seen the 18th lowest cumulative council tax rise nationally. The city has one of the lowest average council tax bills in the country, 280th out of 326 authorities in England.Final council tax bills will include precepts set by the police and fire authorities.

Cameron Scraping the Barrel

By Kevin Maguire on January 22, 2010 5:32 PM Permalink
David Cameron's guilty of distatesful, desperate politics by exploiting the awful Doncaster case of the young sadists to support his Broken Britain propaganda. Tony Blair was guilty of similar opportunisn over Jamie Bulger and I daresay political chancers did it in the late 1960s about Mary Bell. Doncaster social services have serious questions to answer, as Haringey did with Baby Peter, but Britain is self-evidently not suffering widespread social breakdown in which a significant number of kids try to kill other kids or adults go around murdering children. I don't deny the horror of what the 10 and 11-year-olds did in Edlington but Cameron is wrong to explode a rare nightmare into general breakdown. Children's Secretary Ed Balls' aides are highlighting a BBC Look North Yorkshire report of locals in Edlington resenting Cameron's contemptible politics. Balls pointing out the parents of the desentisised, immoral young attackers were married would be as irrelevant as asserting the mam and dad breathe oxgyen if Cameron wasn't simultaneously presenting wedlock as the answer to society's ills. It isn't. Cameron went to a private meeting on Dewsbury's Moorside estate last October to issue a cringe-making apology to the neighbours of kidnapping mother Karen Matthews. The Tory leader admitted on the quiet that he'd been wrong earlier to dub the area "a place where decency fights a losing battle against degradation." The Tories didn't spin the Dewsbury apology to win headlines as they had the original smear. I hope after he's reflected over the weekend, Cameron drives to Edlington and issues another apology - this time to the country as a whole. I for one won't be holding my breath.

Tories twist knife into council staff

Tory council bosses have given a taste of what a future Cameron-led government will mean by torpedoing wage negotiations with unions and telling 1.6 million low-paid workers they will not get any pay rise at all this year.
Council leaders raking in six-figure salaries bluntly dismissed workers' demands for a 2.5 per cent increase on wages that average just £18,000 a year, insisting that local authorities were in an "extremely tight financial situation."
Jan Parkinson, managing director at the Tory authority-controlled Local Government Employers (LGE), proclaimed that "councils are facing a perfect storm of falling revenues and increasing demand for services and many are being forced to cut thousands of jobs to balance the books."
The Tory pay freeze comes as councils from Swindon to Brighton attempt to cut council workers' poverty wages even further to meet equal-pay claims by underpaid women workers, while other councils, such as Birmingham, demand swingeing job cuts.
But union leaders representing hundreds of thousands of workers - from librarians, refuse collectors and cleaners, to carers and lollipop ladies - slated this latest attack as "outrageous."
Public-sector union Unison negotiator Heather Wakefield emphasised that council bosses had not even attempted to talk to the unions.
"There have been no negotiations at all," she revealed.
"We know a pay increase is affordable and with inflation going up to 3 per cent a pay freeze will obviously mean a real-terms pay cut for the two-thirds of council workers who already earn less than £9 an hour."
Ms Wakefield added that "last year Tory shadow chancellor George Osborne said the Tories would not freeze pay for those earning in this pay bracket - but now the Tory LGE is doing just that."
GMB negotiator Brian Strutton stressed that this attack was nothing less than "a political decision by Conservative-controlled local government.
"David Cameron needs to rein in his right-wing mavericks who have the audacity to think that this pay cut is how to deliver local services," he said.
But as the Tories tried to draw battle lines over council workers' pay, GMB rep Mark Wilson reported on a dispute that showed that bosses can be beaten.
"Just last week, Northumberland County Council executives were forced to back down from their own attempt to impose a pay freeze on 1,500 workers after the unions threatened strikes," he reported.
"We made it clear there are strong legal and moral arguments against pay freezes and we are glad that the council decided that this course of action is not appropriate."

Story by Paul Haste.

Help homeless people register for the General Election

The Electoral Commission is reminding people living in temporary accommodation that they don’t need a permanent address to have a say at the next general election. The Commission, the independent elections watchdog, has produced a poster encouraging residents in shelters, hostels and B&Bs to discuss how to register to vote with their accommodation managers.
Peter Wardle, Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission said: “People eligible to vote who are living in temporary accommodation may not realise that they can still register and vote using their temporary address. By displaying this poster and providing a point of contact, accommodation managers can encourage those who are often disconnected from society to have their say.”
The project is being supported by Homeless Link, an umbrella organisation for homeless projects and organisations. Chief Executive Jenny Edwards commented:
“Homeless Link believes it is crucial that those who are experiencing homelessness use their political voice to influence the environment in which they live and the services they use. We welcome the recognition of the importance of homeless people’s votes and are working to increase awareness of voter registration procedures.”
The poster and information leaflets are available from www.dopolitics.org.uk calling 0845 8500 501 reference, order code EC33.
ends/
For further information please contact:Electoral Commission Press office020 7271 0704 / 0530email: press@electoralcommission.org.uk outside office hours 07789 920414

Football legend collects hometown honour

Premiership football star and BBC sports personality for 2009, Ryan Giggs, has been honoured with the freedom of his adopted home city of Salford.
The Wales international and Manchester United winger, from Worsley, joins Nelson Mandela, LS Lowry and David Lloyd George as a previous recipient of the city’s highest honour.
The award was presented to Ryan by the Mayor of Salford, Cllr Roger Lightup, at a civic ceremony at The Lowry, Salford Quays.
Ryan said: "To be given the freedom of Salford, my adopted city, has to rank amongst the greatest honours I have ever received.
"I feel hugely proud and privileged to be recognised in this way and would like to place on record my gratitude to the city fathers for bestowing on me this wonderful tribute.
"I am a proud Welshman and native of Cardiff, but I have for many years looked on Salford as home and to be given this honour means the world to me.
"I’m not sure what the benefits a freeman of the city are, but I do know that it is an accolade I shall always cherish!"
Nominating him, Salford City Council’s lead member of children’s services, Cllr John Warmisham, said: "It’s with great pleasure that I move Ryan Giggs to be awarded the honour of the freedom of the city of Salford.
"Many people only know Ryan Giggs the footballer, but there is so much more to the man than that.
"Ryan adopted Salford as his home city and has become a great ambassador for the city. He also goes quietly about doing charitable work in the city with youth clubs and hospitals and in 2006 he became a UK ambassador for UNICEF.
"He is an ideal role model for young people, a unique sportsman and someone with an awareness of his own good fortune and a desire to use it to help others."
The nomination was seconded by Cllr Derek Antrobus.
He said: "Ryan was brought up in Salford and he has been part of the local community in Swinton all of his life.
"He attended local schools and played for the local youth team, Deans FC and captained Salford Schoolboys.
"It is the contribution to the local community that makes Ryan Giggs a suitable candidate for the honour of freedom of the city.
"He is an inspiration to local people and his national and international achievements have lifted the aspirations of young people in Salford. He is a role model not simply in terms of being a high achiever but also in behaviour."
Mayor of Salford Cllr Roger Lightup added: "Ryan is not only a world class footballer but a Salford resident and I’m delighted we’re able to honour someone of his stature who is proud of their home town.
"Freedom of the city recognises people who have made an exceptional contribution to our community and Ryan has devoted a tremendous amount of his time to work with charities and children over a number of years."
Today's freemen gain no real privileges but they do receive a scroll to mark their status and the pride the city has in them.
The medieval term 'freeman' meant someone who was not the property of a feudal lord, but enjoyed privileges such as the right to earn money and own land.
Town dwellers who were protected by the charter of their town or city were often free - hence the term 'freedom of the city'.
A number of ancient privileges are usually associated with the Freedom - although they are more a product of collective memory than of documented evidence.
For example, freemen of the city of London have a right to herd sheep over London Bridge, to go about the city with a drawn sword, and if convicted of a capital offence, to be hung with a silken rope.
Other advantages are said to have included the right to avoid being press-ganged, to be married in St Paul's Cathedral, buried in the city or to be drunk and disorderly without fear of arrest.