Volunteers’ efforts used for party politics

Published: 8 October, 2010

• WESTMINSTER City Council has this year cut its support for the Westminster Volunteer Centre, despite the fact that council leader Colin Barrow has boasted of the aim to run the council with “an army of volunteers”.

Figures uncovered by Labour councillors show that city council support for the Westminster Volunteer Centre has reduced by 27 per cent from just over £55,000 a year in 2009/10 to £39,209 in 2010/11.

The amounts awarded to the Westminster Volunteer Centre in the last five years are as follows;
2006/2007:   £59,066
2007/2008:   £61,055
2008/2009:   £53,484
2009/2010:   £55,088
2010/2011:   £39,209

How can you believe a word from a council that says it wants to encourage volunteers and then cuts the grant to the local Volunteer Centre by over £15,000 a year because it has messed up the council’s finances?

The truth is that all the Conservative talk about services being run by volunteers is simply a mask to cover the massive cuts in services and increases in charges that the city council has in store for residents.

No one should trust a word the Conservatives say about supporting or encouraging volunteers.

Not only do the Conservatives want to cut local services and run them on the cheap, but they are also trying to make political capital out of those dedicated members of the community who already give their time and effort to help their neighbours by claiming that they are working to the Conservatives’ Big Society agenda.

Many current volunteers will be horrified to learn that their long-standing voluntary efforts are being used for party political purposes to justify Conservative cuts and the so-called Big Society.

CLLR PAUL DIMOLDENBERG
Leader of the Labour Group