£1.2bn deficit this year with nominal funding of £16m. This is *staggering*.
It’s well established that Tory mismanagement is common across local government, but the sheer scale of this example is hard to fathom. It’s so egregious and so unbelievable that I’m baffled by how it was functionally possible to get in such a dire position. Surely some level of process and risk management should have prevented this!?
So I don’t know the approval process for loans to LGA’s but how did they borrow 750 million for a single regeneration project? is that 16 million the total of their income for the year or is that just what the government was giving them?
If that was their only income stream then who approves a loan roughly 45 times their annual income? I understand that government loans are different beats to home loans but even still that kind of loan to income ratio seems nuts
I’m sure all the council head honchos have nice houses and lined pockets, though.
News just in: Popularity contest winners, with no requirement for prior experience with money, handed treasure chest; expected result follows
> Two main private companies run by the council, Wey Group and Victoria Square Woking Ltd, generated the majority of its debt through housing and regeneration schemes between 2016 and 2019.
I’m learning a lot today, namely that councils can run private companies. What the fuck.
Until people start going to prison for this kind of wildly over the top mismanagement nothing will change.
Ahh woking. Known for being Invaided by tripods from mars, being where the Jam is from, and bankruptcy.
It’s amusing/depressing how many people still naively think of the Conservatives as a *political party*. They are in fact a corporation whose business is in syphoning national wealth into private pockets. The main role of many in the company is to seize and retain political power. This is done through its outstanding PR/marketing department whose key strength lies in controlling most of the country’s print media. With that level of brainwashing they can continue to carve up anything from offers the possibility of a private profit to be made (e.g. the health service) and utterly neglect anything which does not (e.g. free education, social work etc.)
So it is true what they say.
Get Woking, go broking.
*The authority’s debt is forecasted to rise to £2.6bn..*
come on, it’s not even £3bn. /s
So if a council goes bankrupt, what then happens to the county and the people in it?
Bet there’s a lot of rich councillors and council staff with piles of money under their beds
Have they ever been audited? When Northampton went bust, they got torn a new one and I know some people got seriously shafted for their actions. How the fuck do they get away with even spending those figures? Don’t they have a risk management person in camp? With the budgets they deal with I would’ve thought this would be mandatory, third party and specially selected to prevent conflict of interest or fiddling. That would be far too logical for the gov to do though.
How the fuck is Woking of all places, £2bn in debt?
What on earth did they actually get for all that money though? I worked there 10 years ago and went recently and didn’t see all that much change.
Forgive me Woking, I’m surprised that the debt is worth more than the Borough.
I hope this doesn’t mean Andrew’s favourite Pizza Express is closing.
We should definitely talk about the Tory mismanagement here but it’s even more important to take a couple steps back and look at the bigger picture:
Local councils have been making these investments out of necessity because they don’t get enough funding from the government, halving their funding over 10 years was the opening salvo of Cameron’s austerity policies in 2010. This was on the back of already being neglected under Blair, and today their real terms funding sits at almost a quarter of what it was in 2000, despite having the exact same responsibilities and larger populations to look after.
The £16 million core funding figure keeps getting reported as an example of how irresponsible they were being but consider, that’s £158 per person. £158 to maintain roads, schools, waste management, libraries, youth clubs, and basically all social care. £158 per head. That’s less than my internet connection costs.
How on earth is that supposed to work?
So this is what all of those mental people shouting “go woke, go broke” mean.
Having worked in local government before, you have no idea how much money goes “missing”.
That’s equal to 125 years of their total annual budget…
Welcome to the club.
Sincerely,
A resident of the London Borough of Croydon.
You mean a government run institution has mismanaged money? I’m shocked…
Well i guess it true what they say..
“Go woke(ing) go broke!”
wonder if they lose their pensions…. and if not i think many of these councils would treat rate payers money with more concern if it did mean they lose out too when this happens….
Prince Andrew claiming he was at pizza express there didn’t help matters
I didn’t even know a council could go bust. This is news to me!
Can somebody explain to me like I’m 5 what does council bankruptcy mean?
Isn’t there a Simpson’s episode on this.. where they just abandon the town (well, stick it on trucks and move elsewhere)?!
Unbelievable. The about of money is staggering
A notoriously corrupt council. If something fails planning applications then there is a known brown envelope route there……
33 comments
£1.2bn deficit this year with nominal funding of £16m. This is *staggering*.
It’s well established that Tory mismanagement is common across local government, but the sheer scale of this example is hard to fathom. It’s so egregious and so unbelievable that I’m baffled by how it was functionally possible to get in such a dire position. Surely some level of process and risk management should have prevented this!?
So I don’t know the approval process for loans to LGA’s but how did they borrow 750 million for a single regeneration project? is that 16 million the total of their income for the year or is that just what the government was giving them?
If that was their only income stream then who approves a loan roughly 45 times their annual income? I understand that government loans are different beats to home loans but even still that kind of loan to income ratio seems nuts
I’m sure all the council head honchos have nice houses and lined pockets, though.
News just in: Popularity contest winners, with no requirement for prior experience with money, handed treasure chest; expected result follows
> Two main private companies run by the council, Wey Group and Victoria Square Woking Ltd, generated the majority of its debt through housing and regeneration schemes between 2016 and 2019.
I’m learning a lot today, namely that councils can run private companies. What the fuck.
Until people start going to prison for this kind of wildly over the top mismanagement nothing will change.
Ahh woking. Known for being Invaided by tripods from mars, being where the Jam is from, and bankruptcy.
It’s amusing/depressing how many people still naively think of the Conservatives as a *political party*. They are in fact a corporation whose business is in syphoning national wealth into private pockets. The main role of many in the company is to seize and retain political power. This is done through its outstanding PR/marketing department whose key strength lies in controlling most of the country’s print media. With that level of brainwashing they can continue to carve up anything from offers the possibility of a private profit to be made (e.g. the health service) and utterly neglect anything which does not (e.g. free education, social work etc.)
So it is true what they say.
Get Woking, go broking.
*The authority’s debt is forecasted to rise to £2.6bn..*
come on, it’s not even £3bn. /s
So if a council goes bankrupt, what then happens to the county and the people in it?
Bet there’s a lot of rich councillors and council staff with piles of money under their beds
Have they ever been audited? When Northampton went bust, they got torn a new one and I know some people got seriously shafted for their actions. How the fuck do they get away with even spending those figures? Don’t they have a risk management person in camp? With the budgets they deal with I would’ve thought this would be mandatory, third party and specially selected to prevent conflict of interest or fiddling. That would be far too logical for the gov to do though.
How the fuck is Woking of all places, £2bn in debt?
What on earth did they actually get for all that money though? I worked there 10 years ago and went recently and didn’t see all that much change.
Forgive me Woking, I’m surprised that the debt is worth more than the Borough.
I hope this doesn’t mean Andrew’s favourite Pizza Express is closing.
We should definitely talk about the Tory mismanagement here but it’s even more important to take a couple steps back and look at the bigger picture:
Local councils have been making these investments out of necessity because they don’t get enough funding from the government, halving their funding over 10 years was the opening salvo of Cameron’s austerity policies in 2010. This was on the back of already being neglected under Blair, and today their real terms funding sits at almost a quarter of what it was in 2000, despite having the exact same responsibilities and larger populations to look after.
The £16 million core funding figure keeps getting reported as an example of how irresponsible they were being but consider, that’s £158 per person. £158 to maintain roads, schools, waste management, libraries, youth clubs, and basically all social care. £158 per head. That’s less than my internet connection costs.
How on earth is that supposed to work?
So this is what all of those mental people shouting “go woke, go broke” mean.
Having worked in local government before, you have no idea how much money goes “missing”.
[removed]
This is just the tip of the iceberg, when austerity started the tories set up a scheme to lend councils cheap money (eric pickles was in charge) so they could go away and start up profit generating schemes. https://insidecroydon.com/2023/01/19/croydon-is-in-a-right-pickles-and-it-is-easy-to-work-out-why/
There are a LOT of ticking time bombs about to go off, not just council mismanagement. Tony Blair started the academy schools and the tories massively increased their number. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/22/academy-schools-scandal-failing-trusts and https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/mar/31/education-union-criticises-badly-flawed-evidence-behind-academy-drive
There are dozens more councils in financial dire straights but they don’t get reported on because this would drive a big red bus through the tories carefully cultivated reputation for financial competence.
That’s equal to 125 years of their total annual budget…
Welcome to the club.
Sincerely,
A resident of the London Borough of Croydon.
You mean a government run institution has mismanaged money? I’m shocked…
Well i guess it true what they say..
“Go woke(ing) go broke!”
wonder if they lose their pensions…. and if not i think many of these councils would treat rate payers money with more concern if it did mean they lose out too when this happens….
Prince Andrew claiming he was at pizza express there didn’t help matters
I didn’t even know a council could go bust. This is news to me!
Can somebody explain to me like I’m 5 what does council bankruptcy mean?
Isn’t there a Simpson’s episode on this.. where they just abandon the town (well, stick it on trucks and move elsewhere)?!
Unbelievable. The about of money is staggering
A notoriously corrupt council. If something fails planning applications then there is a known brown envelope route there……