Opinion: City demands 5% more in taxes but nothing is 5% better, writes Labour group leader Shaz Nawaz

My fellow residents of Peterborough, I have a question for you: over the past year, would you say that public services have become 5% better?

Would you say that they are 5% better at collecting your rubbish? Would you say our roads and public amenities have improved by at least 5%?

Do you think that the council has become 5% more efficient?

Speaking as someone who sits in the council, reviews budgets and scrutinises the council’s plans, I have to say that if you feel the answer to all these questions is “No”, you are correct.

‘Imaginations are limited’

However, there is a high-handed presumption by the administration that they are doing things the right and most efficient way.

I suggest that they have been in power for so long that their imaginations are limited. Furthermore, they are bound to an ideology which simply hasn’t worked.

We have tried to outsource a number of public services: this didn’t yield lower costs, on the contrary. This was foreseeable: if a company’s incentive is to maximise profit, it will operate differently from a public service that is focused on efficiency and outcomes.

Bidding has become a substitute for the painstaking work of day-to-day management. It hasn’t worked.

Yet we still sink money into it.

We have tried several big schemes to attract more business to our city; Fletton Quays is a glaring example. In the end, did this create the revolutionary change that was hoped? No.

Doing something which grabbed headlines was deemed more important than the steady, cautious work of building a wide economic base for our city to ensure its future prosperity.

We pay more taxes but have underpaid staff

No, nothing has gotten 5% better in how our city is run.

Yet the city is demanding 5% more in taxes this year and there’s a warning that it will demand 5% more next year.

Other nations have high taxation: the Scandinavian countries, France, and Germany spring to mind. However, the citizens of those nations receive world class public services in return.

The one world class public service we do have, the NHS, has been battered by strikes due to the government’s reluctance to negotiate seriously.

We pay more taxes, but we have underpaid staff.

We pay more taxes, yet the safety net is frayed. We pay more taxes but our roads are pockmarked, our public transport is sporadic, our education system is under pressure.

I have no issue with people paying more so long as they get value for money in return. That equation has to balance otherwise one party will feel hard done by; in this case it’s our residents.

Time for the Conservatives to go​​​​​

At what point do we say that not only have the Tories’ ideas have failed, but the Tories can’t run government efficiently?

If not already, it should be now. After all, we still live with the consequences of Liz Truss’ failed budget, which cost us £30 billion.

And now, we will pay higher taxes to fill in this, and other gaps. There was nothing inevitable about this; there are choices we could have made and could make which would take us in a different direction.

For the Tories to suggest there is no alternative is disingenuous and speaks to their deep fear that people will raise their eyes, look around, and see that there are alternatives, and that it’s time for the Conservatives to go.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​