At Corporate Issues committee today I challenged officers on reserves. (The Council have 50 pots of money). Some allocated to nothing, others apparently allocated for future needs). We were told that the Council is/wants to use £75m of reserves between 2011-2017.

So for example if reserves were £100m you would expect to have £25m left wouldn’t you?

That is what officers and the Labour Party want the public to think. The reality is though that they are saying they will use £75m but not telling us how much they are putting into reserves. They add money in and then take it back out but:

If you add £100m to reserves but only take out £75m then you have more left than before. You can’t then say in a public meeting that you have used a lot of reserves because quite clearly you have actually added to reserves.

This is what they are doing and the way in which it is being explained to councillors and the public is unacceptable. Reserves are now well above £100m. Many departments are ahead on the required savings.

Why this matters: Everyone accepts that there are further savings to make, however if the council is cutting services (or waste) earlier than planned, then it has more money left over. It could protect some services for longer or carry out other programs to save money or improve things – energy efficiency or road repairs for example. Whilst it does some of this, it could be doing more. Residents are now being asked to pay for garden waste collections. The council could chose to delay this for a couple of years, instead of taking millions of pounds out of the local economy. Instead it is pocketing extra cash but not spending it. This undermines the local economy and it is not necessary. If every Labour run council does the same, then money isn’t being spent and the economy doesn’t improve by as much as it could.

Clearly I am not suggesting that our Labour run council is trying to stop growth deliberately, but hoarding this cash instead of letting residents spend their money in the local area does damage the economy.

Equally refusing to spend the reserves or adding to them means less contracts for work and less people therefore working in the County.

One way or the other, the Council could be doing more to boost the local economy, protect services and make savings. the lack of political leadership is stark. Officers are running the council with no steer from the Labour Party. Some might say that is a godsend. I think a rudderless organisation wastes money and opportunities – that is Durham County Council at the moment.