BEXLEY: Exclusive group of eight Tories deciding spending plans for next year'

A ROW has erupted over the alleged exclusion of councillors from the decisions on next year's Bexley Council budget.

Labour Group leader Councillor Chris Ball claims only eight of Bexley's 62 councillors have had any hand in deciding the council's spending plans for next year.

The proposed budget has been put together by the eight members of Bexley's cabinet all Tory councillors and was unveiled four days before the public cabinet meeting tonight.

Unfortunately the draft budget strategy contains only the outline of spending plans and proposed cuts but none of the detail.

Cllr Ball accused the cabinet members of keeping all the other councillors in the dark.

"It is just undemocratic," he told the News Shopper.

He said the documents he and other councillors received last Friday, didn't even say how much the council currently holds in reserve.

Before the cabinet-style council was brought in, the budget plans would have been discussed at sub-committees and committees before going to the council's policy and resources committee. Council tax would be fixed at a full council meeting and all councillors would have been involved from the beginning.

Council leader Cllr Mike Slaughter said councillors will still get the same involvement but the procedure is the other way round.

"Now it is the cabinet putting forward the proposals. But councillors will be able to have their say and ask for any information they want, when the budget proposals go before the review committees."

He said the review committees can put recommendations for any changes to the cabinet for consideration, before the budget goes to the council for approval.

Normally the Tories would expect the budget to be approved at the council meeting, given their two member majority.

But with Tory councillor Graham Holland suspended from party membership in a de-selection row, they may have to rely on the Tory mayor's casting vote to get the budget through. And if any Tory councillors are missing from the vital council meeting, Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors could force through an alternative budget.