Central Bedfordshire Council will only be £373k better off, says councillor - despite grants of £1.2m

But Councillor John Baker (The Independent Alliance, Aspley and Woburn) the executive member for finance and highways, told the Corporate Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Tuesday, February 11): “That’s approximately 0.15 per cent of the revenue budget. It’s essentially an accounting error in terms of how much better off we are.”

Councillor Baker added that the council had been given two grants totalling £1.2 million.

“The reason that we are only better off by £373,000 is because the government gave with one hand, it gave us these new grants, then it swiftly took away with the other hand,” he said.

“And didn’t fully reimburse us for the National Insurance (NI) changes, i.e. the jobs tax.

“Which just demonstrates the lunacy of this entire system.

“And for those who stand up and congratulate these additional grants, I’m sure someone will from the Labour group at some point, we lost them straight away.”

Councillor Susan Clinch (Green Party (The Central Bedfordshire Community Network), Ampthill) asked why the council hasn’t been fully reimbursed for the NI increases.

Denis Galvin, director of finance, said the government made an assumption for the national figure, and by the time that was divided up the council ended up with “£2.1 million pounds of funding against a roughly £3.4 million cost pressure”.

“So I’d say most local authorities are short in terms of the National Insurance, they just didn’t set aside enough nationally to cover it,” he added.

The committee was told that the council also received a grant for £5.1 million for the “packaging tax”, which Mr Galvin said has been used as part of the balancing of the medium term financial plan.

Councillor Shaun Roberts (Liberal Democrat, Leighton Linslade South) asked if the 0.15 per cent councillor Baker mentioned included this £5 million.

Mr Galvin said it hadn’t been used in the analysis of the settlements.

Councillor Baker added: “It’s just worth pointing out that grants from the government come and go like the wind.

“So you can’t, for example, just rely on a grant from the government to pay ongoing revenue expenditure year on year.”

Councillor Roberts said he didn’t wish to stick up for the government, but: “It feels a little bit misleading when we were just saying we’ve only got 0.15 per cent more money this year than last year.

“We should have a big asterisk next to what [councillor Baker] said.

“I think we will have better quality discussions if we try not to make exaggerations.”

Councillor Baker said: “It’s all very clear in the report, it was a perfectly accurate response to the question I was asked, which was to talk about financial settlements.”