AS WE GO to press, it seems Liverpool coun cil is on the verge of accepting a package of proposals which would avoid imminent bankruptcy.
The Association of Metropolitan Anthorities have offered council over million of borrowing rights unused by other councils has thus been able to compromise substantially, softening the blow involved in its earlier proposals, which were the subject of the Stone-Frost Report canvassed by council leaders such as David Blunkett.
The report would have involved major cuts in Liverpool's HOUSINES budget and an 18 per cent rate rise. The new offer would mean a five per cent tale rise, sale of financial assets such as Liverpool's housing association mortgages and transfer of expen diture to other years budgets.
The concessions will not meet Livepool's needs. But the ferocious onslaught against the councH Tom Kinnock supporters, the council's national isola tion, seem increasingly likely to force acceptance of the compromise.
The TGWU NALGO have already called for acceptance of the original Stone-Frost proposals — but a new grouping within TALGO, calling ITSP 1 NALGO Rank and File, has been campaigning against acceptance the basis that it is a live now pay later solution that would lead to the fight to defend jobs and services being abandoned.