It is unfortunate that at such a
challenging time for our Town, businesses and residents the Council has been
controlled by a rag tail coalition of Labour, Liberal Democrats and
Independents who regrettably have failed to rise adequately to the challenge.
Their recent annual budget was
depressingly predictable in its lack of imagination and realism. Fortunately
following uproar from local businesses and residents supported by the
Conservative opposition the ridiculous proposal to raise seafront parking charges
to £24 per day was scaled back - however the increase still remains unacceptably
high as does the increase in council tax. These measures can only hit the Town
Centre, our businesses and residents when many are already reeling from the
financial effects of the pandemic and resulting lockdowns.
However of greater concern is the
underlying refusal to face economic reality, abandon political vanity projects
and lay a solid base for the future.
As is often the case the most interesting
information is available in the papers prepared in support of the
Administration’s budget.
I was particularly intrigued by the
comments on the Medium Term Financial Strategy. The MTFS currently shows a
projected budget gap for the Council of £20.7 million for the following four
financial years. This is a massive hole and is in the context of a budget for
next year which in addition to making the money grab on parking charges and
council tax referred to above also requires £2.5 million from Reserves in
2021/22 to balance the budget. The MTFS is also based on assumptions as to
levels of central government funding and future interest rates which if wrong would
signpost additional major problems.
Most interestingly the budget paper
comments:
The Council may need to increase focus on the delivery of its services
in a more targeted way, concentrating on delivering services to those residents
who most need the Council’s support. The Council may also need to review and
change its approach to tailoring the delivery of its many statutory services.
To underpin these new arrangements the Council will continue to reposition its
role as one to work alongside the community, its residents and businesses, to
try to improve the many contributing factors that affect people’s lives.
This “possibility” is in my view
a statement of the obvious. It was the underlying policy followed by the
Conservative administrations between 2007 and 2014 who grasped the need to
change the approach to make the Council more focussed and financially efficient
– an view that has clearly slipped in recent years. We believed that reserves
were to be protected as an important safety net, fees and council tax needed to
be kept competitive to support businesses and residents, and spending needed to concentrate on core
services for those in need coupled with creative investment which would deliver
for the Town economically in future years.
The question is why have the Administration
not followed this approach in the current budget rather than shying away from
difficult decisions and rolling the problem on to future years. In the meantime
increasing borrowing on projects such as the acquisition of the Victorias is
only destined to make the situation worse.
I can’t help but bring to mind
the words of the Bard… “Something is not right, seriously amiss...If the authorities
knew about the problems and chose not to prevent them, then clearly something
is rotten in the state of
Denmark.”
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