22 November (Part 1) - Conservative questions and conservative answers
The Labour Group on Bexley Council posed
some awkward
budget questions to the Cabinet last week and even managed to get a few
answers. Then their Conservative counterparts had a go led by Councillor Linda Bailey (Crook Log).
She asked for clarification over the fact that Bexley gets almost the lowest
Public Health Grant in the country. “What have you been doing about it?”
The Council Leader said she had made a number of representations to Government
about the low level of funding. “It is third lowest in the country and lowest in
London. I had a conversation with the minister the other week who accepted
that our budget is low and he has gone away to talk to the Chancellor. If I am
honest about it unpicking the formula will be problematic but we have landed it
at the feet of Government to consider it.֦”
Councillor Andy Dourmoush (Conservative, Longlands) knows a thing or two about finance having run a
successful company for many years. He wanted to know how confident the Council
is of providing vital services after a 20% staff reduction “and have any budget
problems that may arise from exiting the European Union next January been factored in?”
In a shock move the Chief Executive was asked to earn her keep. She had “been
carefully reviewing our workforce over the past year” and not filling vacancies
“which is to our credit but it becomes increasingly difficult. We are
considering the impact and identifying how we might change the way we work and
how we might consolidate our organisation. Part of the blueprint is to structure
the Council around our priorities”.
“We are very conscious that there will be an impact and we want to mitigate it
as much as possible but we want to identify what will stop and what will change.”
“The impact of Brexit is reviewed very regularly We have a range of scenario plans in place.”
Is it just me or is that pathetic? “Structure the Council around priorities.” What do they usually
structure it around? Not one specific proposal and given ten minutes I think I could come up with
that amount of waffle for far less than £200,000. Credit where it is due though, a lifetime of waffling provides
the skill to spew out such words instantly without much effort. But maybe it was
rehearsed. Whatever the case, Councillor Dourmoush was far too polite and house
trained to throw any spanners into the works. Bet it wouldn’t be the same at a
board meeting of the Eden Valley Group.
From Councillor Melvin Seymour (Conservative, Crayford), “Will the auditors take
on board and accept what we are proposing? It is pivotal that we satisfy them.”
The Finance Director said the auditor is “happy with where we are”.
Councillor Francis (Labour, Belvedere) had been thinking of nightmare scenarious and came back
to ask what options would we have had if the Erith warehouse sale had not gone through
“because I think what Mr. Thorogood is saying is that we have not enough reserves
for the redundancy payments”. The answer was fairly obvious. More reserves spent, more
sales or a bigger begging bowl to Government - the Capitalisation Order.
Councillor Diment (Conservative, Sidcup) asked what the cash flow predictions
were but the Finance Director didn’t want them spoken about at a public meeting.
Councillor Nick O’Hare asked about likely Council Tax collection rates this year and next
year. Answer: Council Tax collections are about 1% lower than this time last
year and Business Rates 5%. Next year the figures could be 5% and 10%
respectively. The shortfall this year could be as much a £9 million.
Cabinet Member David Leaf confirmed that it is too early to know what the impact
of the staff cuts will be. He doesn’t know what the cost will be. Covid has
delayed a number of reviews which may have provided more certainty. More details
should be available at the December Cabinet meeting.
All the budget proposals and recommendations were approved unanimously.