Mark Jenkinson MP has accused Cumberland Council of “financial mismanagement” after it has come cap in hand to the Government – asking for the green light to borrow £41m to plug holes in its budget.
Cumberland Council has asked for capitalisation support despite record levels of Government funding, and the £30m worth of savings expected to come from local government reform.
Cumberland Council's budget reports say they intend to increase that to £66m, meaning as much as 15 per cent of their entire budget will go on debt repayment – as much as £.1,600 per household. Taxpayers money going to pay debt interest rather than delivering local services.
It also comes at a time when the council is consulting on reducing bin collection, with the former Allerdale area set to lose the weekly bin collection always protected by previous administrations.
The MP stressed that the blackhole in the local authority’s finances had never been a funding issue but was down to its failure to rationalise staffing and property, or to work efficiently.
Mark said: “This is a shocking example of the tax, borrow and spend policies to which Labour always defaults. How can Cumberland Council keep a straight face as they plead penury?
“After allowing for inflation, Cumberland Council’s budgets are higher now than in 2010. The hole in Cumberland council’s budget has nothing to do with underfunding, and everything to do with its own financial mismanagement.
“The new council had £30m annual savings projected – enough to knock 20 per cent off the average council tax bill. Instead, they ramped it up by almost 7 per cent in Allerdale last year – one of the highest in England, and by 5% again this year.
“Cumberland Councillors voted to double their own allowances (backdated by six months) whilst failing to deliver on basic services, such as bin collection – and have now voted for a further increase. They’ve trebled the bill for councillors’ allowances in just 12 months.
“Cumberland had almost a year as a shadow authority to realise those savings. Instead, they have bankrupted the council with what was originally a £28m projected overspend.”
The local authority has recently been awarded a £13m funding boost via the Local Government Finance Settlement to enable councils to provide vital services for residents and to help local authorities manage their finances in the longer term.
Highways funding for Cumbria is at the highest level ever – and pothole funding increased x10 since the Conservative government introduced it in 2015.
The Council’s four-year capital programme is the highest ever set on the Cumberland footprint at £0.55bn, with over 80 per cent being funded directly by government through initiatives such as the High Streets Funds and Town Deals. There has also been a 10 per cent increase in schools funding.
Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness councils are also set to receive a combined total of £276m for local transport priorities – on top of the £287m already reallocated from the HS2 project to road maintenance, the funding to upgrade the Cumbrian Coast Railway Line announced by the Prime Minister at Conservative Party Conference, and the additional bus service improvement funding announced in October.”
