By Sue Towner
The council’s accounts for 2020/21 should have been signed off and published by the end of December 2021 – they were not published until after the local elections and now we know why!
Having waded through all 211 pages of the recently published accounts, I found some rather interesting facts.
Number one – the auditors won’t sign off the accounts due to a considerable amount of missing information. Their costs to date have been £145,000 up from £124,000 the previous year. Their representative at the audit committee’s meeting was unable to say how much more their costs would be as it was unclear when and if they would get the missing information.
Number two – the projected funding shortfall for 22/23 is £17million so guess where that will come from!
Number three – the costs for chief executives, including current ones and severance packages was £1,139,000. The current council chief executive, Ian Thomas, is paid £194,000 per annum, with 18 other employees being paid over £100,000 a year. All levels of staff appear to have had substantial pay increases.
Number four – the shortfall on income for the provision of services was £28,041,000 which is to be made up by savings (I don’t think the Lib Dems have this word in their vocabulary) and increased taxes.
Number five – there are no restrictions on the council’s ability to dispose of investment properties. Assets reclassified for sale are £377,000. However, under accounting rules, assets are shown at their original cost, so this could represent any of the council-owned buildings – even the Guildhall itself is still at risk.
Number six – Corporate and Communities overspend was £6.613million and Place’s was £2.291million. From the auditor’s comments to the committee, this may include a large number of temporary staff, whose work was not supervised and for which there is no paper trail.
Number seven – during this accounting year, the council’s reserves decreased by £108,395,000 with useable reserves down to £134,370,000.
Number eight – at the Audit Committee meeting, the internal audit team revealed that it had discovered fraud in the finances of adult social care and insufficient oversight in the granting of access to bank accounts.
Number nine – last, but not least, there was one area of UNDERSPEND! The capital budget of £96,045,000 had not been touched! This is the fund to build new council homes, so for all the Lib Dems’ talk of providing homes, they have done nothing about it.
They have blamed all of this on the pandemic, yet few other councils are in such a poor position. The council’s finances are in dire straits with the finance officers refusing to comment on the 21/22 year until the previous one is finalised, with no indication of when that will be. The council is in default over non-submission of their accounts, so being charged fines and penalties. Our Borough faces increased council taxes, aggressive debt collection tactics and newly invented costs so this council can try and balance the books.
