THURROCK’S three consecutive balanced budgets were highlighted at a cabinet meeting of the council.
Leader, Cllr John Kent, was presenting his report on the finance and communications part of his portfolio to members.
He opened by saying that Thurrock Council has had £25 million cut from its budget, and, if you include inflation and increased pressures, by 2014/15 the council will be spending £63 million less on services than it was in 2009/10.
Cllr Kent said: “We are looking at another £18 million cut in budget for 2014-15 and pretty much as much again the year after – and if the Chancellor is to be believed in his spending review, those cuts could go deeper still.
“Despite this, we have so far managed a balanced budget with no council overspend, we have dealt with increasing numbers of people needing our help and care, especially increasing numbers of children at risk, children who come to us as their families are squeezed.
“We are working to square the circle by finding funding from alternative funding option, chief among those is better asset management. Three years ago we didn’t have this option as this council had absolutely no idea of what assets it had, what assets it owned.
“We were constantly being criticised by auditors for not having a list of assets, for not knowing what was ours and what was not – a real recipe for disaster. Now we know. Now we’ve done the work. Now we can look at our assets and decide what is needed and what is not. Now we can look at our assets and think these can be converted to cash and used to help those who need it.”
He said: “Turning to communications there has been a great deal of internal work done that has brought the council £350,000 in savings and yet still delivered things such as the Lower Thames Crossing campaign and provided excellent support to Overview and Scrutiny’s special hearing.
“I think everyone would like to see more of these sort of hearings. Getting more than 100 people into this chamber to give their views and to be able to seamlessly fold those views into our response to the Department for Transport was a great success for this council.
“Let’s find some more issues where we can work together across this chamber to utilise and harness the passion of local people.”
The comrade said blah blah blah safe in the kmowledge that the accounts aren’t yet published on the council’s website so nobody can prove him wrong. I was under the impression that they had 3 months to close the accounts and make them available to view. Maybe I’m wrong or just maybe they took the extra month becasue they didn’t like the look of them. Where’s all the savings they’ve achieved by getting into bed with B&D.