This week sees the main Council meeting for the year... budget setting on 24th February. Now the economy is suffering at the moment so there has to be cuts... what is wrong is that cutbacks have to be fair... we are altering the income of often very vulnerable groups of residents and so altering often dramatically their patterns of living.. some may need that extra money to be able to buy food in a more expensive form or need a more expensive diet . Those who have a very health income will not be so affected as the cost of food rises by around 4% and incomes rise by much less.. probably around 1.7%... cost of travel and heating are also rising above the rate of increase of many peoples' income... there has to be a much better understanding of how this impacts residents and families...as a Council we can help by for example, assisting families to get back to cooking healthier fresh food at much less cost buying the pre packed, pre cooked variety.
We must ensure that our elderly have a decent quality of life and have the opportunity to socialise, get a decent diet, can afford to keep warm and are given easy access to support. Walsall has an excellent care phone service run from Brownhills and I think we should provide such a phone to the most vulnerable.
The other area which is vital to supporting our families is the disgrace of families broken by domestic violence... we need to ensure that the walsall domestic violence forum is properly funded to continue the support so vital to such afflicted families. We shall see what we can debate on Thursday.
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