During the recent Forth Ward by-election, my new colleague repeatedly warned of the imminent threat of direct service cuts due to the massive reduction in funding for local projects that was about to happen with the move to the so-called Fairer Scotland Fund (FSF) ...... he also highlighted the fact that the current Council Administration blatantly postponed a funding decision-meeting to AFTER the by-election in the hope of burying bad news. Thankfully the good people of Forth weren't fooled.
And, in the last week of the campaign, Cammy was repeatedly being accused of 'lying' about the cuts to local organisations.
Well, that "funding decision-meeting" took place on Monday and in one stroke over £527,000 has now been cut from local organisations in North Edinburgh. That figure will get a lot worse when staff-losses are added in, and they will be as some of the organisations are almost certain to fold given the scale of their funding-reduction ... over 50% in certain cases!
I can send anyone the full details by e-mail if you contact me.
It is nothing short of a tragedy for North Edinburgh.
Sadly, its a pattern being repeated elsewhere in ex-Community Regeneration Funded (CRF) areas ... not only here in Edinburgh, but across the country.
Fairer Scotland eh?
2 comments:
The problem is when these cuts are carefully hidden from direct public view - it is vital that the Labour Party is able to highlight, as you are doing, the direct consequences of the populist policies the SNP are following at all levels of government.
Populist policies, as the name suggests, look good to the public, but they have to be paid for. The SNP have made the ideological decision that it will be some of the most vulnerable members of Scottish society who will pay for them - it is up to Labour to bring this to the public's attention.
Jamie
Thanks for the comment.
I think we did manage to communicate this whole issue effectively during our recent, local by-election campaign ... despite being accused of lying! ... and voters did make a choice accordingly.
That said, if this news had come out when originally planned (during the by-election campaign)
then Cammy Day would have secured even more first preferences and transfers!
Andrew
Post a Comment