Cllr Mike Pollard is the ‘Shadow Executive’ Member for Finance and Projects on Bradford Council.
I’m not a trained accountant, but I can read and I can count! Having read and done the maths (and having obtained that rare stuff called triangulated evidence), in respect of Bradford Council’s 2023/24 Budget proposals, I stood up in the Council Chamber with my detailed presentation of the Conservative Amendment. After my allotted 10 minutes, having been greeted with a little chuntering from a sedentary position and one deliciously daft confected Point of Order, but largely (and depressingly) just puzzled looks of incomprehension from the serried ranks of the controlling Labour Group, the Budget was inevitably nodded through on autopilot.
As the finance nerd for the Conservative Group on Bradford Council, I have been stressing for some time that the Labour Council has been making huge errors of judgement on the financial front.
We all know that Councils, like all public sector bodies, have had to tighten their belts in recent years, due to budgetary constraints fundamentally caused by the banking collapse in 2008, but the vast majority of Councils managed to steer a safe path through these tricky financial times.
Therefore, from the outset, Bradford Council’s claim that its potentially impending technical bankruptcy is the fault of the Government has looked fanciful at best. The fact that the Council’s cash reserves never began to collapse until Ofsted rated the Council’s Children’s Services as inadequate put paid to this falsehood.
The Council has, for over a decade, claimed that it could not set a balanced budget for more than a year or, at most, two, only to come in effectively underspent, time and time again. I must explain. Comparing 2013 Budget documents with this year’s Quarter 3’ financial monitoring statement, showed total Council relevant reserves almost unchanged, despite having spent no less than £160 million of reserves over that 10 year period (including a quite extraordinary £99.9 million in just 9 months to December 2022). Creation of a significant chunk of reserves to sit dormant awaiting a ‘cunning plan’ capable of actual delivery, does indicate that the “nasty Tory austerity cuts” didn’t destroy the Council’s ability to finance its services; the council’s refusal to prioritise spending on Children’s Services when they needed it did!
A previous Strategic Director of Social Services has stated in writing that he foresaw the problems and said that they could have been alleviated by an investment of a mere £1.4m, but only a fraction of this request was delivered after a delay of several months, long after the horse had bolted and was now only enough to rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic, rather than plug the hole.
Now we are in what was, but is no longer, an avoidable situation, whereby my Conservative Group colleagues and I have repeatedly tried to forewarn the Labour leadership, that it is very blatantly obvious that the Council is at serious risk of becoming technically bankrupt in the very near future.
Conversations with them have shown time and again, that they are either oblivious to the scale and imminence of the threat, or they are ignoring it and playing it down yet again, in a bid to win in the May elections. It is truly unfathomable, I am genuinely perplexed, I simply don’t get it. It is a disaster that will have massively damaging effects on the lives of the people that we represent.
They are either inept beyond belief or somewhat disingenuous, there are no two ways about it and neither is good. I find it uncomfortable that I feel this way and that I find myself actually hoping that they are simply inept. Bizarrely it’s the preferable scenario.
Unfortunately for the residents of Bradford District the outcome is the same either way; this leaves us in a situation whereby there is a very realistic possibility of a Council Tax increase next year of maybe ten per cent as in Slough, or even 15 per cent, as recently approved in Croydon, following those Councils serving Section 114 Notices, a Council equivalent of going bankrupt. It is important to note that these huge council tax increases are intended to mitigate, not repair, the damage caused by bad decisions made by their local councillors. The Council will still be in deep financial trouble and slashing services.
I fear that without a something-near-miraculous intervention happening soon, Bradford Council will be technically bankrupt, possibly within the coming financial year and for this woeful governance, families living in a Band D home will be paying not far short of £200 a month, including Police/Fire and any ‘Parish’ precepts, to obtain services, perhaps reduced to statutory minima, largely due to truly woeful budgeting setting and allocation of priorities.
I cannot stress strongly enough here, that my colleagues and I are not exaggerating for political gain. I am on record repeatedly airing my concerns, over quite some length of time and increasingly frequently, as my level of concern about the scale, imminence, and lack of recognition of the problem, elevates. I am not crying wolf for no reason – he is banging at the door with a sledgehammer.