Leicestershire Fire Service planned cuts were Tory Councillors on the Fire Authority not just the former Chief Fire Officer - Simon Galton

In response to a Freedom of Information article in the Leicester Mercury online (November 6th) concerning the expenses of the former Chief Fire Officer at a time of cuts and redundancies, Liberal Democrat Group Leader on Leicestershire County Council, Mr Simon Galton advises:

I have tweeted a response to the Mercury article about the internal audit investigation in the former Chief Fire officer's expenses. Whatever the wrongdoings of the Chief Fire Officer regarding his expenses, the plan to close fire stations and sack fire fighters was the responsibility of the Tory Cllrs on the fire authority alone. They instructed the CFO to work up proposals to cut the budget by £1.5m. Of course the Labour Cllrs went along with it to start with but changed their mind when they realised what the plan would mean and in the face of huge opposition started by us. The fact remains that Mr Rushton as Chair said the proposals were safe and I believe they would have implemented the cuts if Labour hadn't changed their mind.

All through the cuts saga the leadership on the Fire Authority were backing Mr Chandler but soon after the cuts were dropped they started to change their attitude almost to the point where he was being blamed for not delivering the cuts! As I say none of this excuses the issues which have come up over the expense claims but we are pretty sure there is another agenda going on here.