“Lessons have been learned and will continue to be learned” amid Liverpool Council’s energy blunder last year according to one of the city’s deputy mayors.
It was confirmed earlier this week schools across Liverpool have been hit with an additional bill of £2.3m as a result of the city council’s mistakes around its energy contract in the spring of 2022. Council leaders were not informed that the electricity provider it was dealing with had withdrawn from the commercial market, leading to the local authority - and other city institutions including schools and the fire service - being placed on a far more expensive contract.
Almost a year on, Liverpool Council has yet to determine how it will act to support schools and could face even more financial hardship in doing so. Addressing the matter at a joint meeting of the mayoral and finance and resources select committees, deputy mayor Cllr Frazer Lake said what transpired last year “could not have been foreseen by the council” while Ian Duncan, interim finance officer, said legal advice had been taken on how best to resolve the funding situation with schools.
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A report released ahead of the committee, written by Mr Duncan, said the council was “hopeful a solution has been found” after conversations with the UK Government. Cllr Alan Gibbons said the council’s response “wouldn’t wash.”
He said: “Not one other council had a crisis like this. You can’t have a manufactured, cleansed narrative.
“The insecurity has been incredibly damaging to schools and to the council... it was a disaster." He said the cabinet must take responsibility for the contract issue as it was "very badly dealt with” and “wasn’t good enough.”
Cllr Lucille Harvey said there had been an element of “fear” for schools due to the level of communications between them and the council which was impacting their budget setting process. Cllr Lake said there were “ambitions to try and solve this” but the council wasn’t in a position to do so until it had held talks with government.
A report is expected to go before the council’s cabinet later this month on settling the funding issue with schools and any decision would require commissioners’ oversight. Mr Duncan said the council would write to schools when those papers go live next week.
Cllr Lake said “measures have been put in place, checks and balances have been put in place” to stop this from happening again, while fellow deputy Mayor Cllr Jane Corbett said the impending cabinet report “needs to be much clearer” as the figures were “really confusing.” She added: Lessons have been learned and will continue to be learned.
“We have to get this right.”
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