THURROCK Council’s finance team won praise from Leader Cllr John Kent at Wednesday (17 December) evening’s meeting of the cabinet of the innovative way they have saved over £15 million in the past few years.
Cllr Kent was speaking on an item outlining the authority’s borrowing and investment performance.
He said: “Back in 2010 when I became Leader of this council I had people coming at me from all angles telling me how much financial trouble the council was in.
“The chief executive back then was an interim coming to the end of his tenure, and the new head of finance was only recently in post as was the finance director.
“Thurrock was haemorrhaging money and the end was literally in sight. If things didn’t change we’d have been broke in three months. I know there are people who don’t like me saying that, but it’s true.”
He said: “I was presented with an innovative proposal; a way of saving millions of pounds without affecting services; and I was persuaded to take the chance.
“Fellow politicians didn’t like it; traditional, staid and risk-averse accountants didn’t like it; and the Audit Commission weren’t keen either, but our decision back then to take all our long-term borrowing and change it to short-term to take advantage of the low interest rates has been an excellent one.”
Cllr Kent detailed the savings, saying: “We saved just shy of £2 million in what was left of 2010-11; just over £3 million in 2011-12; nearly £3½ million in 12-13; and over £3½ million in 13-14 with a further £3½ million saving predicted for this year.
“What this means is that we will have saved over £15½ million by April.”
Speaking afterwards, he said: “This is one of the main reasons Thurrock has, up to now, been able to contain the cuts to services over the past four years or so, it is £15½ million that hasn’t had to be cut from children’s and adult services, it is money we’ve been able to use to bolster our reserves and it proves that as hard as the cuts are going to be, it could be a lot worse.”
