Young are paying price for blunders

Published: 24 September 2010

• WESTMINSTER City Council is planning a 545 per cent increase in charges for holiday play schemes and a 360 per cent increase in the cost of after-school play provision, according to a consultation report sent to headteachers in Westminster. 

The council, which last year had a £20million hole in its budget and invested £17m in now-failed Icelandic banks, plans to restrict subsidised holiday and after-school play places to children who are “at risk of significant harm and subject to child protection plans and children with significant needs”. All other parents will be subject to:

l Increased charges for children’s holiday play schemes from £22 a week to £120 a week.

l Increased charges for children’s after-school play provision from £8.30p a week to £30 a week. Westminster residents are seeing the result of the council’s financial incompetence following the massive budget blunders made last year by the Conservatives. 

Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg
Leader of the Labour Group