Liberal Democrat Leader Charles Kennedy today launched the Liberal Democrat Pre-manifesto - the first important stage in the manifesto process, which will take the Party into the General Election.
Under new Liberal Democrat proposals police chiefs would sign contracts with local communities setting out how many officers they would deploy. The "minimum policing guarantees" would set funding levels for local police for a rolling three-year period. The guarantees are part of the party's new plans to tackle crime. The plans include using money earmarked for the government's ID card plan to hire an extra 10,000 front line police and 20,000 community support officers.
The Liberal Democrats on Surrey County Council have voted against the Tory administration's budget for 2010/11 at County Hall. Leader of the Liberal Democrats Cllr Hazel Watson said: "I support the 2.5% level of Council Tax increase proposed for the Council. Many Surrey residents are struggling to pay their bills during the economic downturn and therefore the Council Tax needs to be set as low as possible whilst allowing for adequate funding for services. I oppose, however, the content of the budget proposed by the Conservative administration as it does the opposite of what Surrey residents want."
Commenting on Government plans to cut university funding by more than £500m, the Liberal Democrat Shadow Universities Secretary Stephen Williams said: "The Government failed to live up to its commitment to fund extra university places and now it seems to be punishing the universities that went out of their way to help the pupils that had been let down."
The Surrey Police Authority has recently approved a seven point plan for Surrey Police in order to address their anticipated funding shortfall over the next three years to increase front-line police officers and further improve policing. This initiative has been supported by the Lib Dem members of the Police Authority.
Liberal Democrat County Councillors have voiced their strong opposition to cuts in services by the Conservative administration. The Conservative run Cabinet has this Autumn decided to terminate all Pegasus school bus services in July 2010, to reduce the ordinary public bus services and reduce the number of roads to be gritted in winter in advance of ice and snow.
For many years the Liberal Democrats have been arguing that there are better and safer modern green alternatives to mass burn incineration. The announcement by the Tories that they will abandon "energy from waste" (mass burn incineration) has finally recognised that the Lib Dem position has been correct all long. Apart from the environmental impact, mass burn incineration is known to discourage councils from recycling waste.
The Audit Commission has today published a report rating Surrey County Council's performance as merely "adequate". The Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) rated the performance of the organisation with scores from 1 to 4 for managing performance, use of resources, managing finances, governing the business and managing resources. The County Council only achieved a score of 2 out of 4 which means that it meets only minimum requirements and only performs adequately.
