19 August - Soothsayers Anonymous
As I was saying to another Council man not so very long ago, I have no idea whether the spate of Finance related messages
given an airing here recently come from someone who knows what they are talking
about or are from Disgruntled of Watling Street passed over for promotion with a
grudge against the immigrants from East Ham and Barnet. The latter obviously has its
origins in fact, it is easy enough to verify that neither the Chief
Executive nor her Deputy covered themselves in glory in those boroughs. But what of his other assertions?
It was time for some further research and Google came up with the mysterious
initials CIPFA which I discovered was the Chartered Institute of Public Finance
and Accountancy. It sounds authoritative enough and
they had expressed some
concern about the direction of travel in Bexley (PDF) in December 2021.
It confirms that the pandemic was not helpful to the finances and the savings target of £6 million in 2020/21 was missed but covered by the government’s
COVID-19 grant. A further saving of £12·8 million was planned for 2021/22 and
more for successive years, but what about the criticism of senior staff? What
did CIPFA have to say about them?
It acknowledges that they were newcomers with 20 put of 34 Finance posts
unfilled. “Bexley has struggled to recruit and retain key finance staff.” It
nevertheless concluded that Bexley’s governance was within CIPFA guidelines.
Inevitably there were concerns about the level of reserves…
…which have since fallen further.
Is that in accordance with the warning about a widening budget gap and CIPFA’s insistence that
the reserves must be kept at an appropriate level?
The question must be, “has Bexley controlled its costs sufficiently to meet future budget gaps?”
Our man on the inside clearly doesn’t think so. He links individuals who failed, at least to some extent, elsewhere,
last year’s Accounts still languishing in a pending tray and the departure of senior staff together and draws the worst of conclusions.
For the sake of Bexley’s taxpayers we must hope he is wrong. We do not want another Croydon, Thurrock or Woking here.