The county council has announced that they will be writing to all meals on wheels customers in Warwickshire, informing them that the previously announced 9th April price rise from £4.00 per meal to £4.25 will be cancelled until a further review has taken place.
This follows a campaign by Lib Dem County Councillor Kate Rolfe (Stratford) who has been concerned about information supplied at the time of the passing of the contract to supply meals to Nottinghamshire County Council from the previous supplier, WRVS.
At yesterday's county council meeting (27th March) Kate challenged the Portfolio Holder over the rise and raised questions about Nottinghamshire's expectations from the contract. The price rise will now be looked at by an Overview and Scrutiny committee on 11th April and their conclusions will be forwarded to the Cabinet for a decision on whether the price rise goes ahead.
"At the moment users of this service - mainly the elderly - are headed for another inflation busting increase", said Kate. ''The last price rise to £4.00 a meal on 1st June 2011 represented a 60% price increase in just 3 years. Many elderly people will really struggle to pay a higher price and will increasingly be discouraged from using this service, which not only provides a hot meal but also a friendly face and a check on their well-being".
Kate added, 'There are many questions that need answering before any increase goes ahead. For the coming year the county council has put aside an extra £13.3 million into its reserves, for contingencies. I can think of no more important contingency than keeping old people properly fed and I'm suggesting that just a small part of this sum is used to freeze the meals on wheels price".
Councillor Rolfe is particularly concerned about the current contract to supply meals by County Enterprise Foods, owned by Nottinghamshire County Council. County Enterprise Foods took over the service on 1st May 2010 from the WRVS (Women's Royal Voluntary Service). The contract envisaged 252,000 meals a year being supplied but it is understood that last year actual deliveries were running at a rate of around 150,000 a year.
Over 20 million working people will be better off next year after Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government delivered the biggest ever increase in the income tax personal allowance in the Budget.
The massive £3.5bn tax cut for working people delivers:
The biggest ever single uplift in the tax threshold
A personal allowance of £9,205 in April 2013
21 million working people getting an extra £220 tax cut
Brings the total tax cut for basic rate tax payers to £550
Brings the total number of people lifted out of tax to 2 million.
Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg used his speech to the Party's Spring conference in NewcastleGateshead to call for the forthcoming budget to be a "budget for fairness" and pledged that it would help working familes.
The Deputy Prime Minister pledged that by 2015 Britain would have seen an end to control orders, the first gay marriages and the first elections to the House of Lords.
Fairer taxes, promoting green jobs, protecting your civil liberties - these are just some of the achievements of the Liberal Democrats in government.
We're building a freer, greener and more liberal country - and stopping some of the worst excesses of the Conservatives. Find out more in this infographic.
Warwickshire Liberal Democrats are proposing that the County budget for 2012/13 should redirect resources towards greater support for individual citizens and local communities, while saving money centrally and freezing Council Tax for the second year running.
The Lib Dem group has tabled budget amendments for the Council's meeting on Tuesday 7th February, calling for a smaller Tory-run Cabinet and the removal of extra allowances for Conservative spokespeople. The £51,000 annual saving generated would be used to remove the charging for public use of the "People's Network" of computers at Warwickshire's libraries.
Members of Kenilworth and Southam Liberal Democrats have condemned the decision announced about HS2 today, and have called on local MP Jeremy Wright to consider his position as a Conservative Party Whip.
For nearly two years local Lib Dems have joined with other LibDem constituency parties along the planned route to campaign alongside members of the STOP HS2 and AGHAST groups to try to change the proposals. Local Lib Dems have agreed that the business, economic and environmental cases for HS2 are each fundamentally flawed and instead have argued that the need for High Speed Rail in the UK, as a way of reducing North-South inequalities in the UK, can best be achieved by other means, in particular by changes to the West Coast Mainline and extending the length of trains and platforms on the Chilterns line.
Delegates arriving at the Liberal Democrats' Autumn Conference in Birmingham on Sunday afternoon found themselves face-to-face with a very large white elephant! It was there to advertise a fringe event that evening organised by the Lib Dem HS2 Challenge Group, entitled "A Better Alternative to HS2?"
In his keynote speech to the Liberal Democrat Conference, Party Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has outlined his goals for the Government and the country over the coming years. He reiterated his commitment to liberal values on the environment and human rights and his determination to ensure a fair chance for every child, saying "every child can do good things, great things, if only we give them the opportunities they deserve."
This consultation response has been submitted on behalf of Kenilworth & Southam Liberal Democrats, the local party representing Liberal Democrat members living in Kenilworth & Southam parliamentary constituency. The proposed HS2 route would bisect the constituency, entering it near Wormleighton in the south and leaving it at Burton Green in the north.
