Surrey Liberal Democrats oppose Tory cuts

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 13th Jul 2010

The Conservative administration at County Hall has today announced cuts to the County Council's budget. Responding to the allocation of the cuts, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Cllr Hazel Watson said: "I disagree with the allocation of the cuts by the Conservative administration. The £3.9m cut to frontline services for Children and Young people is excessive. This will be very damaging to services for vulnerable children and young people in Surrey. It was only about two years ago that children's services were rated inadequate by Government and these cuts will not help to improve the service."

Cllr Watson continued: "By contrast cuts to administration at the Council are minimal. I would cut the administration, communications and back office departments to protect frontline services to children and young people."

Cllr Watson added: "The Conservative administration is mismanaging the Council's finances. Instead of repairing Surrey's roads it prefers to leave the roads full of potholes. The consequence is that claims against the Council for damage and injury relating to the roads are expected to reach £1.1m. This does not make sense and means that money is being wasted."

Cllr Watson said: "The Conservative administration is expecting to underspend its capital budget by £13.9m this year whilst claiming that it does not have enough money to fix the roads and to repair school buildings."

Cllr Watson concluded: "These cuts are bad news for Surrey residents. This in- year budget has been thrown together with little thought as to the consequences for Surrey residents."

ENDS