25/05/2025
By Hugh Jass
IT’S a good job Crumberland Council doesn’t run buses – they’d always be running late.
The News & Shrugs has just reported that the Clowncil’s first-year accounts (2023/24) are still way behind the legal timetable.
It had until February 28, 2025, to get its act together and publish.
This was after an extension from September 30, 2024, which was a polite way of external auditors saying: “We’ll give you more time because you forgot how to do basic accounting.”
The next target? The end of September 2025.
Surprise, surprise, the Labour Council’s also running late with the accounts for 2024/25.
The new unitary, ever the pioneer in redefining the concept of “deadline,” will discuss the latest telling off from auditors at a meeting next week.
Top number crunchers, Grant Thornton, must be racking up a pretty penny for all this hand-holding, not that Scroogequest has shown any interest in delving into this.
In a stunning non-investigation, the N&S padded out its article by lifting copious block quotes from the council’s own Audit report and reprinting them.
The paper routinely treats Council statements like sacred religious texts – carved in stone and immune from interrogation.
Surely the Media can ask a few basic questions for us non-believers in the “official” Council line.
- Who is responsible?
- Why are the accounts late again?
- What’s the impact on Council transparency and trust?
- What’s the repercussions of missing two legal deadlines?
- Is anything vaguely resembling a consequence on the cards?
But no. It seems the Council’s overpaid directors and elected members are completely off the hook again in the public prints.
Never mind! It’s only hundreds of millions of pounds of public money from the authority that milks you for your Council Tax every month.
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The News & Shrug: Cumberland Council nearly a year late publishing accounts
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