Nottingham City Council is to spend an additional £100,000 on legal aid as it continues to be plagued by an inability to recruit permanent staff members. The cash will go towards a solicitor over the course of a year as it seeks to become financially stable.
The Labour-run council had been under the scrutiny of an independently-chaired improvement board after it lost £38m in taxpayer cash in Robin Hood Energy. And after further financial mishaps were uncovered, with an estimated £40m from its Housing Revenue Account wrongly spent, the Government said it was minded to now send in the commissioners.
So far the council has managed to decrease its debt levels from £1.2 billion to £900 million, primarily through the success of its asset rationalisation programme through which it has been selling off property assets it no longer needs, however its progress has come at a cost, too. The council has been struggling to recruit permanent roles and it lacks the required expertise in a number of areas.
