Wayne Fitzgerald throws his support behind the budget

Peterborough Telegraph

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00:00for any of you to think that this is not a collective responsibility and whether

00:05that collective responsibility goes through FSWG, which it does, it then

00:10should filter back down to every single member of your groups. So collectively

00:14whether it starts there it's a council responsibility to set a budget not the

00:21Labour administration as it is and I would have said exactly the same to you

00:26when I was running the council as leader. It was how many times I cannot sit here

00:31in good conscience with Nick Sanford in the room and say anything else okay

00:36because he and I used to have a robust debate he would always say it's your

00:42it's your Conservative administration's budget not ours. It's nonsense as the

00:47chair of the improvement panel has said numerous times. It is the collective

00:52responsibility of this council to set a budget and we'd sit here or adjourn

00:59until we did. Now if you want to absolve yourself of any responsibility then why

01:05do you take part in budget discussions if you are of that mind it would be a

01:11waste of time. So the chief executive has confirmed and the monitoring officer

01:17would confirm it is the council's responsibility to do this that's all of

01:22us. It becomes the council budget when it is passed and I'm now going into my

01:2720th year of council budgets. Been there, got the video, t-shirt, done it all and

01:34I'm glad I'm not sat where Dennis is because it's exactly the same. If we were

01:40running the council we would be presenting the same budget with minor

01:43tweets because we are where we are and the financial reality is the financial

01:49reality. No budget is perfect. It's a series of forecasts that we set forward

01:56and I'm sure Dennis you're realising the very same thing that you do your best in

02:03forecasting and the team work incredibly hard at trying to put those forecasts

02:07together. There's reference that we supported the budget I'm sorry Christine

02:13I will reference you because you mentioned this that in fact your

02:16assumption by the way was completely wrong in that the Conservatives would be

02:21supporting this budget. The Conservatives have a free vote on the budget. Some may

02:26support it, some may abstain, some may vote against it. I don't know we operate

02:31in a democratic group and the fact is that's the reality and just as I and

02:38Councillor Howard signed the budget consultation document is not an

02:43endorsement of the budget then or now. We were just being grown-ups because it

02:50was the fact that we were asked to endorse the consultation. So I personally

02:56like every year whether it was the Conservative budget or whoever's budget

03:01you're never going to be happy with a hundred percent of what's in that budget

03:05but we have to make the very best of how we put that budget together and it

03:12beggars belief that we get to this point and people haven't said what they

03:16wanted to say. I heard a Councillor saying well we need more time. Why? We've had

03:22time to debate this in public and in private in our FSWG that's it's an

03:29awful name I hated it from the very beginning because the public will be

03:32going and I'll say it again Financial Sustainability Working Group where we

03:35get together we discuss the issues and we come up with our best plans but again

03:41they are not perfect and you won't be happy with everything in the budget but

03:47what is the alternative? The alternative is you come with plans and proposals

03:51that you've already run through officers to see if your alternative suggestions

03:56can be workable and I think in Councillor Ali's case he came up with

04:00some very good things for the budget and they've been incorporated into the

04:04budget. There are things that are always red herrings the Lido being one of them

04:09it takes the public's eye off the budget and the real issues like the

04:13Dementia Resource Centre that slipped by at all last year so I hope like you

04:19Christine there are no things like that in the budget and whether the savings

04:23are made or not made you are doing your best effort to make them and we should

04:28support the officers in that budget. So when we come to the vote in a moment I

04:33will be voting for the budget not because I'm wholly endorsing Dennis or

04:38the Labour Party or the Labour Party cabinet because I think it's the right

04:42thing to do for the city and residents given the financial challenges that we

04:47have and for me to sit here again and say anything otherwise when I've preached

04:52to everybody in this council chamber that you should support the budget I

04:59just couldn't in good conscience say anything else.

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