The cost of the county council's pension fund to Surrey residents looks set to rise steeply. Last year it represented almost 5% of our council tax payments, but due to the fund's worsened deficit (almost 50%) this is likely to rise to over 8% by next year, according to figures obtained recently by Cllr Colin Taylor.
Figures obtained recently by Cllr David Goodwin show that the recent refurbishment of County Hall in Kingston, which also involved the costs of moving staff from one office to another, will total £3.123 million spread over 3 years.
Last year, Conservative dreams of seeing Surrey declared an 'excellent' County Council were shattered by Ofsted's shocking findings in the Joint Area Review. Vulnerable children were not safe in Surrey. By the Autumn the Secretary of State had given Surrey notice that it must carry out a demanding two-year improvement programme, meeting a rigorous series of targets, or risk having its services taken over.
In this year's budget the Tories included bus service cuts as one of the ways of paying for a lower council tax increase than in previous years. More than 10% of the subsidy will be cut next year.
Surrey Liberal Democrats at County Hall have been denied the opportunity to debate the failures of the Tory administration and the millions of Council Taxpayers' money wasted. The ruling Conservative group refused to allow the debate saying that they did not have enough information to debate the subject adequately.
The European Parliament has come to an agreement with the European Council on a deal that will significantly cut the cost of mobile roaming SMS (texting) and data charges from the 1st July 2009.