Council's Bogus Consultation

12th Jan 2004

The ruling Labour group on Harrow council is wasting more tax-payers money on a divisive consultation exercise, and their leader has already stated he won't even be bound by the results. It's is simply a device for the council to hide behind when its true tax-and-spend plans for Harrow become known.

The questionnaire asks residents whether they'd like to see budgets slashed for meals-on-wheels, or would they like to pay higher taxes. Would they like to see cuts in education - or pay higher taxes. How about taking money from the disabled, or paying higher taxes?

Strangely it doesn't ask us if we approve of the hundreds of thousands of pounds spent refurbishing the offices of senior council employees, or the millions spent on politically correct causes or donated to other London councils for similar purposes. It doesn't even ask us if we want to spend a few million pounds on various IT projects, such as giving every councillor a free laptop computer. How about reducing the £1.6M spent on 'consultants', and why are council tax payers funding "union facilities" to the tune of £150,000 a year?

Many have decided to simply cross out the divisive questions and return the form with a suitably phrased message indicating that they should stop messing around and sort out their budget properly - no more tax rises above inflation. Unfortunately to do so wastes even more money as the council then pays Post Office for the 'freepost' address. And what's the point? When the leader of the Labour group (and hence the council) Archie Foulds was asked whether he would do what the majority of respondents wanted is stated clearly that he wouldn't necessarily honour the results.

The council's cynical tactic is as pointless as it is transparent. Our message to the council remains the same - stop wasting our money and give us proper services.