It seems to us that on the rare occasions Boston Borough Council’s leadership takes a shot at “transparency”  it does so only when there is no possible chance that we will understand the information presented to us.
So it is with the Tory budget proposals for 2013-2014, which are accessible on the borough’s webpage for "consultation" because there is “more than the usual uncertainty around the level of central Government support for local councils in the next five years.
Great, some consultation at last, we hear you cry – and cry you will when you set eyes on the document and realise that it might as well have been written in Cantonese for all the sense that it makes.
The most helpful starter for ten is the tip that pages 16 and 17 detail policy changes the council is proposing.
We’re not being patronising when we say that we are sure that there are quite a large number of councillors who are ultimately being asked to vote in favour of the budget who won’t have a clue about what it is saying – so what chance do we lesser mortals have to make sense of it?
The budget gets its first cantering out before the great and the good at today’s meeting of the borough’s Cabinet of Curiosities.
It starts with the now traditional red herring of the “zero per-cent increase” in council tax, which makes it appear as if our leaders have moved heaven and earth to freeze our bills, when in fact the government has slipped them £35,000 as compensation.
So who are the winners and losers?
With customary lack of imagination, we will see drivers who park in the town centre taking another big hit, with an increase in charges for all car parks of 20p which will start an hour earlier at 8 am from 1^st October –  plus a £1 charge for overnight parking.
These "charges" are the report terms as “savings” of £43,000 this financial year, and £106,000 a year thereafter  until 2017-2018 – except, of course, that they will certainly have been increased more than once by then.
The rightly-praised staff loyalty is taking a hit as well with “Employee Terms and Conditions” generating savings of £167,000 next year – rising to £230,000 by 2017-2018.
We’ve already reported on the clumsy juggling which has  seen the cost of the Garfits Lane playing field dumped on  BTAC to “save” £34,000, whilst the discretionary rate relief budget will be amended  to reduce support by 25%  in 2014/15 – which will be a body blow for many small charity organisations.
There will also be changes to the budget for voluntary organisation grants in favour of Boston Citizens’ Advice Bureau at the expense of the flamboyantly extravagant South Lincolnshire Community Voluntary Service which until now has enjoyed vast amounts of taxpayers’ largesse.
The CAB's grant will increase from £45,000 to £65,000 to recognise “a significant increase in demand for their benefits advice and debt advice as the new council tax support regime and universal credit rules take effect.”
SLCVS will lose a corresponding amount and will only rake in £31,000 a year instead of £51,000 – although if it follows the practice of previous years, it will milk the BTAC budget.
Other “nice little earners” by way of new charges include a pall bearing service set to generate £5,000 a year, and charges for street naming and numbering – which will bring in  another £2,000.
A charge for events in Boston’s Central Park is estimated to generate £2,000 – and given how few events there are in a year this may prove a serious deterrent, and just as the weekly craft markets on the Market Place wall of death are settling, stallholders will have to find £6,000 a year between them to enjoy the privilege.
Finally, our vote for the daftest idea is the proposal to extend the current gym facilities at Creations at the Geoff Moulder Leisure Centre – which has already had hundreds of thousands of pounds lavished on it – well beyond the original estimate.
The budget report makes no mention of the likely cost  –  but claims that the investment “will result in increased membership income.”
Although we know that the council is hard pressed for cash – and likely to remain so for years to come – we cannot help but wonder whether the so-called proposed “solutions” will actually generate bigger problems than those they are meant to solve.

 

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