Public taken for 'fools' amid questions over when council first knew of bankruptcy risk
As the full extent of Gloucester City Council's embarassing financial position emerges questions are arising over how long the local authority leaders havce been aware of the crisis.
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There are questions over how long Gloucester council chiefs have known about the “financial catastrophe” they are in amid fears the public are being taken for ‘fools’ and “drip fed information”.
Gloucester City Council revealed last week that they are in need of a bailout loan from the Government of up to £17.5m.
If they do not secure this funding, the council would effectively become bankrupt.
Council leaders have agreed a financial recovery plan to deal with the issue which has come to light after accounts from previous years have only recently been checked by external auditors.
However, there are questions over how long key people at the authority have known about the predicament the council is in.
Finance chiefs are understood to have been in talks with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government about the possibility of securing exceptional funding support.
Read more: City Council needs £17.5m Government bailout loan to avoid bankruptcy
And Conservative Councillor Sajid Patel (Barton and Tredworth) asked about the council’s “financial catastrophe” at a cabinet meeting (Wednesday, December 10).
He said he was concerned council chiefs were only briefed about the “dire” financial situation of the authority on November 26.
He asked if the council was “gameplaying” and “drip feeding” information while taking the public for fools.
“That was a day after we had a special meeting in this chamber where we debated and discussed the issue around the £1.5m black hole,” he said.
“Isn’t it just a bit of a coincidence you only found out a day after we had that special meeting?
“Or is there some gameplaying going on here where you are drip feeding us information and you think we are fools and the public out there as fools.
“It sounds to me like you already knew and the timing of it is beyond belief.
“Is it a coincidence also this timeline was around the time of the local government reorganisation proposal that you have had the senior management working on for the last 11 months?
“If there is gameplaying going on, it needs to stop now.”
Council leader Jeremy Hilton (LD, Kingsholm and Wotton) said they were briefed on November 26 with the “full impact of what the situation was”.
And it was important things were not done “by tip off” as people would get the “wrong message”.
“None of us knew what the financial situation was before that time,” he said.
“We knew that there was a briefing to be taking place.
“The important thing when you publish documents in the public domain is that they are accurate as they possible can be and they have all the information they possibly can.
“We’ve been extremely transparent in what has happened and we have given all that financial information and it is now presented in these cabinet papers.
He said the financial report was published on December 2 and was written over the weekend before.
“Both Declan [Wilson, the resources cabinet member] and myself saw that document on the Monday, and it was okayed and approved to go out to the public after the group leaders were fully briefed on it.”
Speaking after the meeting, Gloucester MP Alex McIntyre said he was surprised to hear the council was not aware of their serious financial problems until late last month.
“This raises further questions about how this is possible and why no one at the council appeared to ask the necessary questions,” he said.
“I am still awaiting a response to the letter I sent to the managing director on December 5. In that letter I listed 20 questions covering a range of issues relating to the financial mismanagement at the Council and the report they released last week.
“One of these questions relates to a lack of accountability and an apparent unwillingness to be open and transparent about what has gone wrong.
“Moving forward I urge the council to consider how important it is to be honest with the people of Gloucester about how these events have unfolded.
“Ultimately it is residents who will pay the price for this mismanagement. The least we deserve is honesty.”
By Carmelo Garcia, local democracy reporter for Gloucestershire. carmelo.garcia@reachplc.com