Opposition claim authority is failing targets and 'arrogant and complacent'

An Ealing Councillor has accused the ruling Labour authority of arrogance after a report showed the council was failing to achieve targets in nearly half its service areas.

The report which went before Cabinet this Tuesday (10 July) showed performance worsening in 46% of services areas.

Targets not being met include number of schools achieving good to outstanding ratings; only 1.8% making cycle journeys as opposed to the aim of 3.5%, failing to keep street clean of litter, graffiti and fly-posting, and customer services phone answering times.

Councillor Gary Malcolm, Ealing Liberal Democrat Leader said, ''Labour are failing in so many areas including our schools, having dirty streets, giving a very poor customer service and not encouraging enough people to cycle. When I asked about what they were going to do to improve things, the lead Labour Councillor said that Ealing Council were ‘doing bloody good’. That smacks of arrogance and complacency.”

Cllr Bassam Mahfouz, Cabinet member for Finance and Leisure, said, “The reality is that Ealing Council, like all councils, has faced significant cuts. Most people are shocked to hear we'll see nearly two-thirds of our spending power gone thanks to their own government's cuts. Against that depressing reality, Ealing have hit nearly 60% of our targets last year, amongst them being one of London's best recycling boroughs now at 51%; high tenant satisfaction and on the top issue facing residents in Ealing, we have hit our target on delivering affordable housing.

"Our street cleaning performance is still better than under the previous Tory regime, road safety and cycling infrastructure is something that we not only care about but are delivering on whilst good and outstanding education is one of the real draws for families to come into Ealing as a borough.

"Anyone living in the real world can see how every public service is being attacked by this government. It's time he and his cronies got out of their caves and started asking for this sustained attack on our critical public services to end.”

Cllr Greg Stafford, Opposition Leader said: “The end of year performance indicators exposes yet again, that the service continues to fall short on litter cleaning, graffiti and flyposting. All hallmarks of ineffective management of the contract by the Labour Administration.

"The fact that Labour now feels enable to deliver the whole service speaks volumes on their arrogance!”

July 11th 2018