County Lib Dems set out their budget priorities

The Warwickshire County Council Liberal Democrat group of councillors has been consulting and working through the proposed £67 million cuts to services by 2020 as outlined in documents published. We are concerned that not all the information needed is being placed in the public arena for council tax payers to make a judgement on. Our core principle is that we should be seeking to "Invest for the Future. As part of the budget making process, therefore, we are making the following commitments known now for the other political groups on the council to consider if they also wish to support.
Our Youngest & Most Vulnerable
Investing in children and young people is also investing for the next generation - it goes beyond elections and one budget. That is what the Liberal Democrats said when we introduced the £5.0 million funding for the "Smart Start" programme, that this needs to become the everyday business of not just the County Council but of Health and others. A long term vision that lasts.
For this reason we have decided not to support any of the proposed savings on Children Centres. Sustained investment for our future delivers better outcomes for children and families, but also makes savings for the public purse in the longer term.
There is a need to reduce children from becoming looked after within this sum allocated we are also proposing to main stream the "Smart Start" work. We shall be investing the remaining allocation and adding to it ensuring that we can achieve our goal of a service that is fit for the future.
Our Fire Service
We say that there should be no more cuts to the Fire & Rescue Service - it is at the edge of not being able to provide a safe service. We say no to the proposed cuts to fire engines and staff.
Instead we want to invest £200,000 into community fire safety, focusing on three important initiatives:

• Delivering CPR training to schoolchildren at all 36 state schools across the county at year 8 level, equating to approximately 6500 students, at a cost of approximately £80k per year.
• Road Safety Education: The service attended approximately 600 Road traffic collisions in 2015/16, with approximately 150 people extricated from vehicles. On average there are approximately 30 people killed in Road Traffic Collisions per year. For Fire and Rescue to deliver road safety education through its "Fatal 4" presentation to all state schools in Warwickshire would be approximately £80K per year.
• Arson Reduction: There is an arson reduction officer embedded with the Police and other partners within the Justice Centre in Nuneaton. This has contributed to a 30% reduction in deliberate fires/arson in 5 years, This now needs to have the investment needed (£40k p.a.) to roll into the south of Warwickshire.

We are still near the start of the budget decision process for Warwickshire County Council, which will conclude next February. Because of the very big challenges ahead, Liberal Democrats believe it only right that we start to say as early and as clearly as possible what are our priorities for the years ahead. This is only our first release, and we will be releasing more as the process moves forward.
Cllr Jerry Roodhouse Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group on Warwickshire County Council said
"The challenge to other Groups is out there. We place these items at the top of our list going forward - our youngest and vulnerable need support, while our Fire Service is on the edge of not being able to protect our communities.
"To Conservative and Labour we say, this our first step, with more to be released. You can be open now and say that you will support our steps for investing in the future of Warwickshire, or play the politics of wait and see. The choice is yours" .