9 June (Part 1) - Looking after themselves
Bexley Council has published its 2023/24 Accounts;
154 pages of PDF. That is going to take some reading!
At a time the borough is nearly broke there is an extra £10,000 for Directors, a
£7 million overspend and £6 million more of the reserves eaten up.
Just two examples of increased Director pay.
Councillors ‘pay’ rose from £674,000 to £713,000. I hadn’t noticed that, more research to be done.
The outgoing Chief Executive benefited by £233,102 for a little over six months
work. Cost of Directors overall up from £1,314,216 to £1,435,672. A little under 10% extra.
However staff pay and benefits overall is down by nearly £10 million. It could be due to fewer
staff or maybe highly paid agency workers have been replaced by permanent staff.
Children and Adults’ Services expenditure was up by £13 and £20 million; no surprise there then.
BexleyCo is in hock to the tune of £2,738,000.
With both Labour and Conservative parties promising to freeze all the major tax
streams, you know what is going to happen donְ’t you. The Council Tax cap will be lifted
and Bexley will be back in 17% per annum territory. Neither party can be trusted
on tax, Sorry, make that anything at all.