As Nottingham City Council faces commissioner intervention Nottinghamshire Live has answered some of your pressing questions to help explain the situation and its impact on residents. The Labour-run authority had managed to slash its debt from £1.2 billion to £900 million under the scrutiny of a Government-appointed improvement board, however further intervention is now planned after further financial issues were unearthed.
The Conservative Government had installed an improvement board, chaired by Sir Tony Redmond, following the collapse of Robin Hood Energy so it could monitor and scrutinise the council's progress towards financial and cultural stability. But patience began to wear thin after it was discovered an estimated £40m from the Housing Revenue Account, which must legally be used for the benefit of council house tenants, could have been wrongly spent on general services.
As such tenants had been losing out and their rents had been hiked. The payments, £15m of which deemed unlawful, had been taking place for a period of six years and no one, not even the auditors, had noticed until the end of last year.
Read more: Questions raised over payments dating back to 1990s at city council
As such the Government revealed, in its latest response to the council's progress, it was minded to send in the commissioners to take control of certain operations. According to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, its "position remains the same" despite a spate of Government resignations which led to Prime Minister Boris Johnson's demise.
But, most importantly, what does all this mean for residents of Nottingham? Some of your burning questions were answered during a Q&A recently, and the answers to those are as follows:
Question: Who are the commissioners? Politicians, lay experts, folk from other councils, and who gets to chose them?
Answer: The Secretary of State for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will select the commissioners based on their skillset. It is not an open process and this has been criticised before as they are not elected officials, like councillors. The Government does say however councils are almost always consulted on who is to be selected.
For example, in Liverpool, the lead commissioner is Mike Cunningham, a former chief constable who has more than 30 years in policing - including working to improve standards in policing in England and Wales. In Nottingham, the lead commissioner would be Sir Tony Redmond, a former local government ombudsman, who has been the chairman of the city council's improvement and assurances board, so he is an obvious and suitable choice. Other commissioners can indeed include those who have worked as chief execs of councils in the past, for example.
Question: Would there be any extra money from central government to help pull Nottingham out this black hole?
Answer: Since 2010 local authorities have lost millions in Government grants in favour of raising cash for statutory services through tax. In Nottingham this is over £100m or £400-ish per person. Former chancellor Rishi Sunak says this year the Government has increased council spending by 8%, but obviously this will not fill the void.
As far as we know no extra money will be given and it is cuts and asset sales which will bring it out of the hole. In fact commissioners cost money and it is the taxpayers who must fund these. In Liverpool for example, for the four commissioners, the bill to taxpayers is over £600,000 a year and they will be in place for three.
However the city council has been forking out hundreds of thousands of pounds for consultants and external aid because it doesn't have the required expertise to get everything in order. Sadly it's a game of pick your poison for the people of the city.
Question: Has the Post considered asking Government why now? The latest IAB progress report said the Council has improved and set a deadline of September. The Post reported the other week that Council debt has fallen by £200 million and in March a balanced budget was passed at Full Council. So why is Government doing this now?
Answer: It's an interesting one, primarily because those involved in the decision-making have now departed their roles. Michael Gove, the secretary of state for the department overseeing the council, was as you're probably aware sacked and it was him who was said to have been satisfied the council was failing on its 'Best Value' duty.
"Best Value duty is how a local authority continuously improves in how it functions, including in economy, efficiency and effectiveness. And the minister of state who provided insight into how the Government was feeling about the council's progress, Kemi Badenoch, has too resigned and is now running for PM. While this throws a spanner into the works, she had provided this statement about why it had now chosen to intervene, and it points towards the HRA issues, while historical, as being a primary factor.
It reads as follows: "The Secretary of State has carefully considered the findings and recommendations of the independent reports from Richard Penn and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) regarding the unlawful Housing Revenue Account (HRA) expenditure, alongside the evidence presented in the Board’s latest progress report and assessment of the Council’s response to the HRA issue.
"He is satisfied on the basis of the evidence provided that Nottingham City Council is failing to comply with its Best Value duty. He is therefore minded to exercise his Best Value powers under the Local Government Act 1999 and appoint Commissioners. He is also minded to appoint you as Lead Commissioner, subject to representations received, given the constructive working relationship you have established with the Council and your understanding of the challenges facing the City."
Question: If NCC's Labour councillors have voted for closing the libraries or say they can't oppose the cut, why do some councillors like Hassan Ahmed get to say they oppose it in the paper or be on the picket line outside the Council House on Monday, including all three deputy whips? Either you have decided they close and it's collective responsibility or you haven't. No consistency?
Answer: The city council has argued "it is not something we want to do" however their financial situation, which leader David Mellen argues has been primarily caused by declining Government funding, "dictate that we look at everything". The council is, as such, shifting the blame as it were on to the Government saying it has no other choice - but its own financial mishaps obviously don't help at all.
There are allegedly discussions taking place over whether volunteers could run the libraries to keep them open, but this has been criticised. It's a difficult one as the council needs to go down the back of the sofa and look for anything and everything to help it achieve financial stability (such as the seemingly measly £233,000 it would save from closing the three libraries, for example).
More concerning is that if, or when, commissioners come marching in, they may be less forgiving than even the council may seem right now. Councillors quite obviously don't want to close these vital services, I don't think anyone in their right mind would, but they're - figuratively speaking - being held at gunpoint by the financial woes that the council has right now.
Regarding why councillors have been at the picket line, Wollaton's Steve Battlemuch has provided this comment: "I think whatever the issue when people made an effort with petitions and lobbies it is incumbent on councillors to meet and discuss the issues with them. Not everyone could do so because of other meetings taking place."
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