A couple of years back, Vale’s external auditors said council’s Tory administration had let too many senior staff go, in fact to the point that council was no longer able to run the business effectively. So the last three years have seen an expensive structural reorganisation taking place.
About three years ago, I read a newspaper article about how angry and shocked local people were in another authority when they learned their Local Plan has cost them over £3mil. I thought ours had probably exceeded that, so I asked our Head of Service. At that point they didn’t track the cost of Local Plan work separately (!?). But they said all their policy budget was essentially for Local Plan work. So there have been eight years of Local Plan work, at £1mil per year, and we still have no complete local plan. That should be in the news. That’s how the Tories have managed the planning policy budget.
In 2018, we learned that the estimated £9mil savings to be realised from the 5 Councils Partnership (5CP) outsourcing scheme was lost. The financial outcome at that time was described by the council’s Chief Exec as ‘break even, at best‘ (my emphasis). This decision to outsource was a huge, risky decision, made in secret, without ever coming past Vale Scrutiny Committee or Vale Full Council. I heard the former Deputy Leader of Vale say on radio during the 2019 elections debate, that it HAD come to council. That isn’t true. Obviously the contracts weren’t thought through or evaluated enough. There were errors in the calculations of current costs of service. Some critical services weren’t even IN the contracts (such as wifi in the council offices, a basic provision). There was not enough time allowed nor people involved to ensure it was a good deal for the taxpayers. £9mil in forecast savings, gone. Unsurprisingly, Council’s external auditors found problems with council’s value for money assessment. Council is still spending money to improve the contacts and services that are part of this 5CP. Many services have already been brought back in house. There are seven more years to run in this contract.
Council has three main income streams: business rates, new homes bonus, and council tax. Government frequently modifies the business rates scheme and new homes bonus schemes, and ministers have said they expect local councils to maximise their income from council tax. For years, Tories decided, against officer advice, to freeze council taxes. They are proud of this past; they still brag about it. But now we are in a bad state; the medium term financial plan shows council will run out of money in about 4 years time, unless something happens to fix the problem. The cost of these Tory decisions to freeze council taxes is estimated by our accountants to be > £10mil over the medium term. This failure to responsibly incrementally raise council taxes has led to an over reliance on new home bonus, which was always a fragile scheme. This year the new homes bonus has been wound up, leaving us in a perilous financial situation.
It all started in 2011, when Tories announced their free 2 hr parking scheme, a clever bribe for votes, which actually worked to get them into power for the first time in years. Who wouldn’t vote for free parking in their market towns? Tories assured everyone it would increase footfall and the spend in town centres. The cost to our taxpayers is £200,000 per year, and it’s ongoing. So, £1,600,000 of taxpayer money, income that could have been used for frontline services, has been lost due free 2 hour parking for car drivers over the 8 years. When asked for evidence to support their benefit claim of increased footfall, no evidence was provided, since none is available. Tories produced zero evidence of any benefit for that spend. In fact evidence around the nation shows that city centres actually suffer when free limited parking is provided. People come and instead of lingering for lunch (etc), pop in and get out before their free parking time expires.
Most recently, the Tories gave about £250,000 to the Abingdon Flood Scheme, which has since been cancelled as forecasted costs rose beyond what was viable. It was public money down the drain.
It’s obvious the Tories never had enough people in place to do the work required. That has cost the council both financially and in terms of reputation.
So the Tories lost control in the recent election. We, the Liberal Democrats, were elected instead. We have made it our highest priority to get the council’s finances under control.
