False Claims By Surrey Tories

12.00.00am GMT Wed 18th Feb 2004

... descibed politely as misleading ...

Surrey County Council Conservatives' claims that extra funding has been put into education, social services and road maintenance by sweeping cuts in administration and bureaucracy could be described politely as misleading or perhaps more accurately as downright lies, according to Councillor Janet Maines, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats on Surrey County Council. Most of the extra funding in the budget has come either from the government or from prudential borrowing says Mrs Maines.

The Liberal Democrats slammed the Conservative administration at the budget meeting last week for not taking control of contracts, not making cash efficiency savings and not being honest about what services are they going to cut. These are the reasons the Liberal Democrats did not support the Tory Budget proposals.

Councillor Janet Maines said, "The Tory administration is putting out to contract more and more county services, with very little control of those contracts or indeed very little knowledge of how the contracts are working".

She added, "Just one example of this is the Waste Contract. The County Council this year has had to set aside £17 million from the sale of assets to cover future difficulties, money which could have been used for projects in Education, Social Services or Major Highway Maintenance"