Conservative Spin on Council Finances

10.11.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Sun 24th Aug 2008

Official finance reports forecast a massive £1 million under spend in Uttlesford Council's expenditure by next March. The Liberal Democrats have raised their concerns with finance and administration committee chairman, Conservative councillor Robert Chambers.

Commenting on this latest news, Lib Dem finance spokesman councillor Geoffrey Sell said: "Getting the council budget seriously wrong by grossly under-spending is almost as bad as overspending: it is another sign that the Conservatives got their sums wrong earlier this year. Only last month, Conservative councillors claimed they were unable to find an extra £5000 to improve the bus pass scheme for older residents. Unless these official forecasts are way out, it looks like large sums of money are being salted away in council reserves by Conservative councillors while public services are allowed to suffer."

Fellow Lib Dem, and former council leader, Alan Dean said: "Eight months ago the Tories made grim forecasts of a £1.5 million overspend to March. These forecasts were shown to be way over the top when the council's books were closed in June. Evidence is growing that the Tories, and their consultants, overreacted to what was a far smaller cash shortfall than they claimed. They made more people redundant than was strictly necessary and paid out £500,000 on golden handshakes. The result is loads of spare cash and too few staff to do the jobs that the public needs doing."

Liberal Democrat group leader councillor Peter Wilcock concluded: "The Tories are increasingly looking out of their depth on council finance. Whatever Conservative council leader Jim Ketteridge may claim, we never said that there was no need for financial adjustments and had planned sensible economies ourselves. Nor did we blame the Tories for the original problem, but they must take responsibility for what looks like a serious overreaction to an exaggerated problem. It looks like too many good people were paid to leave, so the standard of services and ability to plan for the future are threatened."