Dudley UKIP councillors defeat Labour and Conservative budgets

Dudley's UKIP councillors successfully challenged both a Labour and Conservative budget last night despite having just eight of the 72 seats on the council.

Labour councillors wanted to put up council tax by 4.99% and the Conservatives 3.99% with a guaranteed rise in council tax next year. UKIP put forward an amendment to the Conservative budget which would ringfence 3% of the 3.99% for social care and bring in an outside company to handle the procurement who would be paid a percentage of the cost savings they make.

UKIP is generally committed to freezing or cutting council tax but you can't win every fight and clearly eight UKIP councillors are massively outnumbered so this compromise is a good one in the circumstances. There's a risk of an ATOS-style shambles without proper scrutiny so the success of the arrangement will come down to whether council officers manage their supplier effectively or not but this is the best outcome the group could have hoped for.

Commenting on the meeting, Cllr Dean Perks said:

We voted against both but had to set a budget legally or the government would step in and we'd be stripped to basics. In the end UKIP put an amendment to the Tory option so we got 3% adult social care ring fenced increase and 0.99% general increase, total 3.99%.

But in addition UKIP moved to bring in an outside professional company to deal with procurement which will save £millions securing front line services and avoiding an increase in general fund next year through prudent management of purchasing. In a nut shell we will save 5% from the £385million annual spend.

UKIP Dudley Councillors refuse pay rise

Dudley's 7 UKIP councillors have rejected a 2.2% pay rise pushed through by the Labour Party and are urging other councillors to follow their lead.

Cllr Paul Brothwood, the leader of the UKIP group on Dudley MBC, said:

With hundreds of staff on zero hour contracts and with council planning to cut £200,000 children's services, we would rather see frontline staff and services prioritised and not councillors' wallets.

The Labour Group has already given massive pay increases to senior management in Dudley Council which only UKIP fought. They now want councillors to have a piece of the pie.

The council is desperately short of money - I just can't believe they're offering a pay rise.

The leader of the Conservative group, Cllr Patrick Harley, showed just how out of touch the Tories are by saying that most councillors wouldn't notice the 2.2% anyway and that UKIP's stance is just a headline seeking gesture. If most councillors wouldn't notice the 2.2% increase in their allowances then why pay it? Why not support UKIP in diverting the extra money from councillors who don't need it and won't even notice it to front line services?

UKIP councillors have asked that the 2.2% increase be paid into the community forum pot to be spent on community projects.

UKIP councillors have best attendance records

Research by the Times (£) has found that UKIP councillors have the best attendance of any political party.

UKIP councillors attend on average 92.4% of compulsory meetings, Conservatives attend 88.6%, Labour attend 88.3%, the Lib Dems attend 87.7% and the whiny Greens attend just 79.6% of meetings.

Propaganda from the LibLabCon parties dismissing UKIP councillors as ineffective show that the opposite is the case: if you vote for a UKIP councillor they will spend more time representing you than councillors from any of the other parties.