Alarm bells ring as council financial blunders accumulate

Liberal Democrats have expressed alarm at the continued financial anomalies at Wiltshire Council and have accused the Conservative administration of squandering ratepayers' money. According to Deputy Group Leader Peter Colmer more evidence is being unmasked of waste and mismanagement on a regular basis.

"We have already seen the damning audit report published by KPMG that raised significant concerns regarding the lack of financial controls during the change from five councils into one", Cllr Colmer commented, "And we recently discovered that the Conservatives at County Hall got their cash flow projections wrong by a staggering £12 million last year".

"Now, following my questions at the recent council meeting, we have been told that in the last 18 months 130 staff from the council have been made redundant at a cost of £12 million. Averaged out that means they would have received £90,000 each, although I'm sure that many of the junior officers who have been cut will not have enjoyed that level of pay off!"

"Now the council is making another 240 managers redundant at a cost of £5 million, for which they have had to borrow from valuable reserves to meet the cost."

"What isn't happening is the gathering of valuable "Section 106" monies owed to the council as a result of developers not fulfilling their legal agreements. Even now, the council is unable to confirm how much is owed due to this administrative negligence".

Leader of the Lib Dem Group, Jon Hubbard, added, "What is really staggering is that Conservative Leader Jane Scott defended paying an extra £800,000 in redundancy to ex-Wiltshire County Council staff, almost doubling what they would have been entitled to under the new rules imposed for council staff. Apparently that was "the only fair thing to do"!"

Cllr Hubbard added, "When challenged about the wanton waste spent on relaunching the council following the merger, examples of which included spending £113,827 on replacing existing uniforms with new versions with the Wiltshire Council logo on, and £179,227 on changing the signs on buildings to read 'Wiltshire Council', Cllr Scott's only response was that we should move on from these issues. Of course she wants us to move on - it's an embarrassment to her!"

"It's time cabinet members started taking responsibility for these mistakes and stopped blaming officers," Cllr Colmer concluded. "It's like a general blaming his troops for losing a battle. The people of Wiltshire deserve to know the extent to which this administration is playing monopoly with their council tax. With the change to one council we were promised gain, but all we seem to be seeing is pain. As yet we have seen no demonstrable benefit to the migration to one authority for Wiltshire residents."