Delivering Sound Finances and Investing in Services

Claims that the OCC and WODC administrations have millions of unspent money or that council tax increases are excessive are nonsense.

The hard nosed LibDem business and financial experts in both administrations are doing an excellent job of service delivery against ever tougher financial constraints as explained below.

I’ve noticed some misleading information about Council spending and Council Tax charges coming repeatedly from certain quarters and individuals… Here are the realities :-

1)      ‘Unspent’ £287m Fund from new housing

The council does indeed have a fund made up from developer contributions, called S106 contributions, related to new housing.

However, this money is not a general fund that the council can use as it wishes, but can only be used for the purpose set out in the original contract with the property developer related to each development.

It is prepaid and it is completely normal, for a number of simple reasons, to have a long lag between the planning consent and receiving the money and spending it. For example, a lot of S106 money is intended for schools, and clearly it would be very imprudent to build a school before the pupils were ready to enter it. So, the money is held by the County Council until it is required and in the intervening time used to generate interest income, which is used to deliver services.

The LibDem administration inherited a £226 million fund of S106 money from the previous Tory administration, and as the pace of house building has increased in the county so the amount of prepaid S106 money has increased.

However, the council has spent £87m on schools, libraries, road improvements and public spaces, including, recently, new schools in Farringdon and Didcot, new primary schools in Grove and Bicester, and secondary school expansions in Thame and Wallingford. It has also undertaken library improvements across the county and, among other projects, many traffic calming measures. And in the coming year some major projects in our area are being funded by this money. It is being spent and spent wisely on important infrastructure.

It is deliberately misleading to suggest that the County Council sits on or is sitting on these S106 funds.   

2)      Council Tax Rises

Last year we saw a 5% increase in our council tax, which some quarters have been suggesting is improper and that the current council administrations ‘are to blame’.

So let’s be clear; all councils in England increased their council tax last year, by amounts dependent on their council tier, with the average across England being 5.1%. Our 5% was entirely in line with councils like our own, though some saw rises of 8% to 12%.

Why have council taxes nationally been rising? Because, over the 15 years of the last Tory government, councils had their central government funding reduced by 25%, while experiencing cost inflation of around 10%. You can’t deliver crucial services, like bin emptying, with a third less money, so taxes had to rise. However, the government fully expected this so set caps on such rises – hence the standard 5%.

So the council tax rises you are seeing are the same across all councils, whoever is in charge, and are the result of huge cuts in funding by the previous government that remains unaddressed. Given this, the most important question is this... Is your council delivering good services, whilst maintaining a balanced budget  that ensures the council remains solvent, under challenging financial constraints?

Our local LibDem councils have achieved this and have, through working collaboratively, been able to achieve economies of scale including saving £580,000 p.a. on recycling costs - while remaining one of the best regions for recycling in the country. That is a testament to the current administrations hard nosed financial and business acumen and experience.

3)      Green Bin charges   

Another area that was raised as being ‘disgraceful’ was last years rise in the green bin charges. The chart below gives our charges against other surrounding councils, which speaks for itself.

One has to wonder why anyone would take issue with us having the second lowest green bin charges?