COUNCIL leaders have given a lukewarm reception to the idea of working together on a spending plan in advance of the General Election.
Labour leader Tim Swift said preparing a budget separately was wasteful, encourages political confrontation and doesn't deliver the best results.
"It means officers doing the same work three times or more as groups ask for their own proposals on sav
ings and growth to be calculated," said Coun Swift.
But Conservative leader Stephen Baines (Con, Northowram and Shelf) said he had been working on his budget proposals for months.
"If we had not introduced our procedures two and half years ago we would still be having council tax increases of nearly 5 per cent," he said.
Liberal Democrat group leader Janet Battye (Calder) said she shared some of the concerns about budgeting.
"But every time the Labour group find what they think is a problem, they want to set up some new bureaucracy to deal with it, which is a costly and inefficient way of doing things."
Councillor Swift (Town) wants the bulk of the work on developing proposals for savings and growth to be carried out through all-party budget review groups.
Unless the system changes, the Conservatives will table their spending plans for consultation in January and put the results to the budget council meeting at the end of February.
