Beating down council spending

Adam Hewitt • Published 8 Jun 2010 17:00 1 Comment

COUNCIL staff who overspent by £1m last year have been warned that belt-tightening cuts are aimed at them too.

At the first full Cabinet meeting of the new Lib-Con Coalition governing Reading, councillors heard how high-spending departments could not stay within last year's budget and that the authority had to draw down its balances. A one-off £3.6m VAT refund helped pay for this.

Deputy council leader Kirsten Bayes told the meeting: "The council ran £1m over-budget last year. The balances were drawn down to make the books balance, but I'm not happy with that kind of performance. I'd rather see the council meeting its budget or being a little bit under, rather than drawing down the balances which are intended for unanticipated events."

She was worried by the council's £165m capital borrowing and said: "That's a fairly large mortgage on our future that we will have to pay out of current funds during a very difficult time when money is tight."

Finance chief Dave Peasley said the council would review its capital programmes this summer as Government funding plans became clearer.

Former council leader, Labour's Jo Lovelock, said the overspending on her watch went on "demand-led" services like community care and social services, where the council has no choice but to spend the money if people are in need.

She added: "We also increased the levels of balances in the current year's budget to act as a future buffer. It only takes one family of five children to be taken into care and you have a huge amount of money to find that you can't do anything about."

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• 

  Spirit of Friday
  Unregistered User
  Jun 11, 20:08
  Report comment

  There is a lot of waste in the council which i hope the new administration will eliminate.
  
  The paper that gets generated for just a simple issue is unbelievable.
  
  The various Departments don't communicate with each other and there is no conception that they are spending other peoples money.
  
  Recommend?   Yes 0     No 0

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