Lambeth is London s only joint administration, following Labour s loss of overall control in May. Although Labour and the Lib Dems both have 28 seats, and the Tories just seven, the Lib Dems and Tories now run the council. After three months, how is this unholy alliance getting on?
With only seven members, the Tories are already proving themselves able to manipulate the 28-strong Lib Dem group. Partly, this can be explained by looking at the Lib Dem councillors themselves. Many of them have little history of political involvement, having come into local politics to pursue narrow, issue-based agendas.They have little idea of party discipline or collective decision-making, and are starting to squabble as they find out that, while it s all too easy to make as many demands as you like in opposition, once you get into power you have to prioritise and decide what you can and can t afford to do.
The joint administration still has not published a political programme and has established no criteria against which to decide its priorities. Both parties manifestos were littered with spending pledges but the Lib Dems have to square these with their pledge not to raise council tax without a referendum; the Tories with their desire not to raise council tax at all. They hoped they had found the fig leaf they needed when auditors, sent in by the previous Labour administration, uncovered a £6 million hole in the social services budget. Labour s improved management and finance systems meant the problem was quickly identified and could be dealt with more easily.
But the Tory and Lib Dem administration chose to target their cuts on services for vulnerable, but politically weak, groups. For example, they sacked social workers from the Youth Offending Team; cut back on support for helping disabled kids access the mainstream curriculum; sacked a support worker who assisted people who become blind or deaf as adults and scrapped the home shopping service for the house-bound elderly.
The state of Lambeth s roads was a big election issue. The Tory deputy leader of the council announced at the council s AGM that if there are any potholes left in four years time, they will be our potholes . Decades of under-investment in the roads can t easily be fixed, even over four years, with so many other priorities making urgent calls on capital funds. So, to help find the money, the Lib Dems and their Tory friends have embarked on a radical programme of selling off council housing at a time when huge numbers of tenants are crammed into overcrowded flats or, even worse, are stuck in bed and breakfast accommodation (which is also being cut). Such a policy is unlikely to play well with voters who, when electing Lib Dems, hardly expected such hardline Tory policies.
On top of all this, the Tories and Lib Dems wasted £160,000 paying off the former executive director of housing, despite his successful track record, because some of the Tories didn t like him. They ve thrown £100,000 into an investigation into a community alarm service, even though it s already been closed, and they ve increased pay for their own executive councillors by 30 percent at a time when they re asking council staff to accept just three percent. It s not an encouraging start.