IN November 2013 the council’s executive board set up a body to look at the introduction of the living wage.

The obvious benefits to lower paid workers had to be balanced against the implications for council contracts, the effect on our suppliers, the council’s finances and the wider Warrington economy.

A policy committee took responsibility for this work and set up an all-party working group. A paper to this policy committee on 10 March recommended the working group continue to meet to discuss this issue and report back eventually to the executive board.

Liberal Democrats support the implementation of the living wage and the process outlined above is sensible and meets with our approval. There is much to be said for the council leading the way on the living wage. It is right that the unions should be consulted as part of the process.

However it is now apparent that one arm of the council has no idea what the other arm is doing. At the council budget meeting on March 2, eight days before the policy committee, it was announced that the living wage was to be implemented as part of the budget.

This took us completely by surprise because there is no reference whatsoever to the living wage in the budget papers so it was not part of the recommendations on which we were being asked to vote. The work of the all-party working group had been hijacked.

To make matters worse the council leader is reported in last week’s paper as accusing two councillors of voting against the living wage by their decision to oppose the budget.

This is nonsense because the living wage was never part of the budget. To add to Labour’s confusion, the responsible executive board member attended the policy committee on March 10 and admitted that the living wage was ‘an aspiration’ for 2016/17, not the budget year.

We wonder why the Labour leadership sprung this announcement on us all. Anyone would think there was an election on the way.

CLLR IAN MARKS Leader Lib Dem Group, Warrington BC