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News and Comment October 2023

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7 October (Part 2) - We’re doomed! Doomed, I tell ye!

The first Public Cabinet meeting since the middle of July was like all the others in recent memory. It was all about the money and an update on the scarcity of that commodity.

Ms. Morris (Deputy Director of Finance) kicked off with a report on the monetary situation as it was last July by which time Bexley had spent £7·152 million more than it should have done and more than half a million more than just a month earlier. Everyone is overspending with Children and Adult Social Care being the worst offenders. The demand will not stop growing and if things do not improve by the end of the year the only solution will be to spend more of the reserves. Council Tax collection rates are still running behind pre-pandemic levels but there will be no need for further borrowing until the middle of next year.

Deputy Leader David Leaf said much the same thing but in a far more convoluted manner. However he did usefully add that the Council had managed to cut expenditure on temporary housing. (There will be celebrations in shop doorways across the borough.)

Cabinet Member Cafer Munir said he was managing the impact of higher interest rates and BexleyCo had some “healthy projects in the pipeline”. Redevelopment of Erith continues with “commercial frontage between Morrison’s and the Riverside shopping centre. 68 Pier Road will be fitted out as a Community space for hire and an indoor market”.

Cabinet Member Richard Diment spoke about recycling and commendably did so without any Craskian bragging about Bexley being top of the recycling pile. However despite some setbacks it is still among the more successful London boroughs. Green bin waste costs taxpayers £130 a tonne to burn and 37% of that is food which can be recycled at a profit - or at worst be cost neutral.

He debunked some of the dubious PCN stories emanating from the BBC - and repeated here. The monetary write-off was down to various factors and the debt situation is not straight-forward. The £2·7 million allegedly owed is mainly recent penalties yet to be paid and a big chunk of the write-off is because the DVLA has no record of the reported vehicle registration number. The next biggest group - 25% of the total - were foreign registered. Of 2,193 cancelled tickets, 1,500 fell into those two categories. They could not be economically pursued and bailiffs are very often unsuccessful, especially against dead people. Bexley’s write-offs are worth about half a million; in Labour run Newham the write-off was £7 million higher.

“The Council issues nearly 5,000 PCNs a month and they provide revenue to support the many other services that have to be delivered.” (I thought that was illegal and parking revenue had to be spent on road improvements.)
Ring fenced
Councillor Stefano Borella (Labour, Slade Green and North End) asked what impact there might be on Bexley if neighbouring Kent County Council declared a Section 114 in line with their recent warnings and he questioned the continuing reduction in reserves which are now below recommended levels. As the auditor has said, this money is going to run out.

Everywhere one looks projected savings are not being achieved and local government is in crisis after 13 years of cuts. Cabinet Member Leaf responded with references to Sadiq Khan (ULEZ) and Jeremy Corbyn (friend of Putin) and “the record of Labour’s economic failures while he (Stefano) supports more tax”.

Councillor John Davey - remember him? - said that ULEZ is impacting small business in the borough who are finding it difficult to get supplies and services from out-of-London contractors who will no longer cross the GLA boundary. (Good. I have always felt that ULEZ might be defeated by a concerted effort to starve the Mayor into submission.)

Councillor Cameron Smith (Conservative, St. Mary’s and St. James) asked how the Children’s Social Care overspend was being monitored and remarked on the increased popularity of the garden waste The service is bringing in an extra £300,000 a year. Cabinet Member Philip Read said the Care budget is monitored constantly but the demand keeps increasing and Covid is in part the cause of that. Richard Diment said about half of residents with gardens are paying the bin tax and suggested that £2·40 a collection is competitive with other boroughs, carefully ignoring the fact that I have family members in North East London who are still getting the service for free.

Councillor Daniel Francis (Labour, Belvedere) decided to blame transient Prime Minister Truss with a little bit of Brexit thrown in for good measure for residents feeling the financial pinch, especially on mortgage rates. Back on track he correctly identified reserve dipping, especially in election years, as a huge problem but “never, even under the Labour administration have things been as bad as in the last two. We will have to spend £32 million of reserves to balance the books within two years. 43% of total reserves and in non-ring fenced reserves it will be 55%. We have not followed our own recommendations. Is this correct?” (Daniel’s comments have been cut down to size but with the main thrust of them preserved - I hope.)

“In March Members opposite said they would deliver on the deep dives but by July 43% [of the savings] were said to be unachievable.” Similarly in March the deep dive recommended more CPZs [to raise more revenue] but in July “there was no political support for more Controlled Parking Zones. The reason is the lack of capacity to deliver things.” About a dozen items were listed as being pushed back to next year. Cuts have consequences.

You can always tell if the opposition has touched a financial nerve because the Leader will jump in with a few words designed to steer the Finance Director in the right direction,

When she was done, he commented on a few minor issues but did not refute Daniel Francis’s basic facts and figures. How could he when they were his? But he is “looking at all opportunities to mitigate the impact”. You can bet he will be or his Chief Executive ambitions will be doomed. All hands to the S114 pump!

 

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