LABOUR COUNCIL CRITICALLY POOR

A WORRYING 55-page report was quietly published by the Government this week.

It draws back the curtain on how, er, magnificently managed Crumberland Council is.

The Chronic’s conclusion?

Man the lifeboats, Cap’n, ah think she’s gaunnae blow!

The review into the Council was commissioned by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

It comes amid deep unease about finance and governance at the Labour-led unitary authority.

The review confirms that HMS Crumberland has been racking up “significant overspends” alongside “unmet savings targets” (taking on water).

Despite multi-million Government bailouts, the Council needs to cut its cloth by an “enormous” £41 million, the review said.

A new and potentially very costly Equal Pay Claim has also been lodged by the public sector unions.

Circa £10m is going to be set aside for redundancies and what’s the betting that people being kicked out of the door will be dressed-up by the Council as “transformation”.

Let’s hope any redundancy programme starts at the top and not the bottom.

The review took place last October but was only published this week for us plebs.

It was conducted by top accountants and management consultants from The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), the professional body for public finance.

A couple of sentences leap from its pages.

“The absence of a coherent contingency plan to address financial shortfalls is of concern.”

“The council’s financial stability is currently jeopardised.”

“The council is at risk of not being able to manage its financial operations effectively in the short term.”

To give a sense of the seriousness of the review, no fewer than 16 Crumberland Council bigwigs were invited in for an, er, friendly little chat with accountants.

Those interviewed included:

Supreme and Glorious Council leader, Cllr Mark Fryer; lifelong finance wizard, Dame Cllr Barbara Cannon; Labour audit committee chair; Cllr Lucy Patrick, and Labour councillor Jeanette Whalen, chair of the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

Also summoned for a tête-à-tête with the accountants was £177,000 a year chief executive Andrew Seeking; his number two Nik Hardy; chief finance officer Catherine Bell, both on £110,000, and EIGHT other Council directors and officers.

At Christmas, with the trademark lack of self-awareness endemic in the Public Sector, Council boss Mr Seeking told staff that in 2024 the Council had embarked on a “Remarkable journey” and how 2025 would bring “Even greater achievements”.

Apparently blind and deaf to its own shortcomings and inadequacies, Labour Council leader Cllr Mark Fryer “Out of the frying pan into the Fire?” is feverishly trumpeting for Devolution.

Alarmingly this would involve Angela Rayner, the ladylike Deputy Prime Minister and Mensa candidate, entrusting ever more millions to this corner of the country.

The review makes 25 recommendations.

Some are marked “red” and therefore pose a “critical” risk to the Council.

A critical risk is defined as follows:

“Major financial losses for the Council; costs in excess of £100,000; intervention by the Government; national press interest, major political embarrassment for Councillors.”

The Council’s Audit and Scrutiny functions – described as “immature” in the sense that Councillors are not long or familiar in this confusing and bewildering role – hinder “effective oversight and accountability”.

The Council’s Labour executive is also not being “effectively” challenged by either of the two committees charged with holding it to account.

Nor were accountants overly impressed by the lack of “critical challenge” shown in the Chamber by the Council’s opposition.

This includes councillors representing the Conservatives, Lib Dems, Independents and Greens.

“As the public record of council meetings indicates there has been limited significant challenge to the decisions of the controlling (Labour) group,” the review sniffed.

(The trouble is, Local Government has now become so ridiculously complex, unwieldy and high brow, is it any wonder that the ordinary Councillor can’t keep up?)

The Council’s much-lauded “Transformation programme” to identify savings and service changes is also being “hindered” by the poor Governance structure at the Council, which is “not agile” enough to make the changes needed.

Crumberland Council’s spend and borrow Capital Management Plan was also branded: “Overly ambitious and unmanageable”.

Finance reporting was slammed as “critically poor”.

The Council now needs to sell, sell, sell to bring in money as a source of income to help towards the impossible job of balancing its books.

It has 180 assets valued at a total of £131 million; although what might be sold off isn’t said.

The good bits of the review do exist if you look hard enough, although they are few and far between.

Once again Cumbria’s media has also been found asleep at the wheel by failing to keep track of these concerning behind-the-scenes developments…