This was a long meeting but a pleasantly constructive one.   It’s the annual meeting where the budget is proposed by the administration and then the other party groups propose amendments which inevitably fall because the administration has a majority.  But we have to go through the process as it is a good chance for political groups to show their priorities for the City, especially in the run-up to local elections.

As we LibDems are not really a million miles from the Oxford City Administration on lots of issues we take the view that it’s better to propose a small-ish number of sensible and properly costed amendments to the administration budget rather than wasting lots of officer time preparing a budget that we know won’t get voted through anyway.  I’m pleased to say that our budget amendments were confirmed by the senior financial officer (the Section 151 Officer) as being financially workable and thus legal.   This was not the case for the symbolic mess that the Green Party proposed!  (Yes that is a political comment but this is a political blog!).

Our budget amendments were presented expertly by Cllr Mark Mills, our Deputy Leader, and the headline additions were:  Re-introduce democratic area assemblies; restore a full out-of-hours noise complaint service; 24 hour help service for all tenants (not just those in social housing); double the number of apprenticeships offered by the council; free parking for electric vehicles; and retaining the current Dial a Ride service.  There was more.  These extra costs would be offset by cutting councillor allowances; cut war councillor budgets; and delete proactive river bank work.  The budget was well-received by all present, including some clapping from the public gallery.  The Administration response was gracious and I appreciated that greatly.

There was time for the normal questions to councillors so I made sure I asked some more about the HMO licensing scheme:

My first was about a home with a couple “living together as if spouses or civil partners” and one other person.  The answer seems to imply discrimination against people based on martial status, which I thought was illegal!

My second question was clarifying if where a house, if classified as an HMO because it has 3 or more lodgers with resident landlords, needs to count the landlord(s) in the numbers in the HMO – the answer was yes.  This of course means even more expense for people just letting rooms in their houses to help make ends meet and to provide hugely needed accommodation for many people in our City.

My third was really just an observation that the council lets its own tenants (often vulnerable families with children) live in much worse conditions than it is now allowing private lets of non-vulnerable adults to live in.   The answer seemed vague but I think it was basically because the council has the power with HMOs but not with families – frankly I think that’s rubbish as the Administration could do all sorts of improvements to its own housing that it lets to tenants if it chose to.

My final question pointed out the obvious paradox in the City Council at the moment whereby it pays landlords a £600 finders fee plus expenses for landlords with a two-bed house to let but that for a three-bed there are onerous HMO checks and fees of £362 plus £150 per year to pay.  The answer was that there is a shortage of two-bed properties in Oxford.  If the Administration thinks the current HMO scheme is going to do anything at all to improve that situation then frankly I think its members are bonkers!