Changes to City Council "impressive" under Lib Dems - Independent Audit

3.59.08pm UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 28th Mar 2008

Seven of the City's Lib Dem Councillors

Lib Dem changes at Oxford City Council have won praise from the independent Audit Commission, which assesses the value-for-money of all Councils. After a quarter of a century of Labour mismanagement, they said that the Council was "high cost, low value" for local residents. In their 2008 report - just published - they say that in two years of minority Lib Dem leadership "the pace of change and improvement has been impressive".

Lib Dem leader of the Council, John Goddard, said, "I am proud that the Liberal Democrats have speeded up improvements in local services: doubled recycling, cleaner streets, better parks, rebuilding Rose Hill, leading a strong response to climate change. We have done all this while finding savings that have not reduced front line services. There is still more to be done to improve the value for money of council services after so many years of Labour's wasteful approach of throwing money at problems rather than solving them."

The Audit Commission letter praises the City Council's "impressive" improvements over the last year. This is a welcome 'thumbs up' from the national experts on councils' performance. "Lib Dems will continue to face up to the challenges ahead after 1st May if we are given the votes on 1st May," John Goddard said. "We shall improve services that people want and need and we shall deliver much better value for money."

The other parties' attitude to value for money was shown up when the 2008-2009 budget was set last month when Green and Labour councillors ganged up to impose a council tax increase of 4%, throwing out Lib Dem plans to keep the increase to 2% well below the rate of inflation. John Goddard said, "We will improve front-line services and save money by sorting out the back-room. Residents have had enough of waste and high taxes on less well-off people from Labour and the Greens."