Thursday 3 April 2008

Lib Dems question financial transparency

Posted by Chris:

At Redcar & Cleveland Council today I asked why Council Tax payers now have to pay over £25 million for “Other Services” this year.

In a letter sent out with Council Tax bills to explain where the money goes, “Other Services” now accounts for £25 million, up from £13 million last year. This makes it the second highest category of expenditure, with only Social Services higher (£36 million).

We need to know why the cost of these mysterious other services have rocketed so much. The whole thing looks to be out of control.

Even if Labour can explain it, there is still a problem. £25 million is much too high a figure to be represented in this way. It needs to be broken down more.

Labour promised to be open and transparent in their running of the Council. But this doesn’t look very transparent at all.

Local people have a right to know where their money is going.

The Labour Cabinet Member for Corporate Resources, Cllr Peter Scott, conceded that £25 million was a “large figure."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I await with interest to see if Cllr Scott feels he can provide answer to this question without breaching confidentiality or embarrassing Officers in Finance and Procurement Dept!
This point was raised last month on redcar.net.http://www.redcar.net/xmb/vt.php?fid=36&tid=6149&page=5&pid=388109#selected