Is there some ban through the Conservative Central office on our MP’s meeting with their borough and district council colleagues?
Waverley Borough Council leader Paul Follows has called for a face-to-face meeting with MP Jeremy Hunt – or, he says, just a response to an email would suffice, about the funding cuts affecting local government.
He says they’ve met in an official capacity once since the Pandemic.
In nearby Horsham, which shares border villages with Waverley, Cabinet Minister Jeremy Quin, the MP there, also refuses to meet with the newly elected Liberal Democrat District Council.
Chancellor Jeremy regularly met with the previous WBC Tory administration. Jeremy Quin met periodically with his Horsham colleagues when they held power.
Guildford & Cranleigh MP Angela Richardson snipes from the sidelines, blaming Guildford’s woes on the Lib Dem administration that has been in power for a few short months. However, you may note that she has at least met with officers of Guildford Borough Council, not the leader!
She is working with the sadly diminished Conservative Group to understand why the reserves have been so severely run down after the Conservatives left office. They will undoubtedly have told her about all those unwise investments they made during their long tenure.
Guildford suffered a catalogue of financial accounting failures following project mismanagement by council officers, which R4GV identified shortly after they were elected in 2019. Sadly, the consequences of both have hurt the town.
Increased demand for services, the state of the UK economy, high inflation and interest rates and a succession of government funding reductions over many years added to the same problems facing district, borough and county councils across the country.
Just over two years ago, R4GV brought councillors with professional and financial backgrounds into the council Executive. They revealed enormous waste in projects. R4GV cancelled many projects and put in place improvements.
What a disgrace; if our politicians refuse to cooperate with those of a different colour, what chance of solving their severe financial problems that will impact us all? And, what chance for world peace.
Simple. Hunt sees WBC as a spent force. Hunt cannot afford to be associated with failure. Even more so when the cause is his own parties utter ineptitude. Hunt is steering clear because some very unpleasant things are heading WBCs way and Hunt will stand aside and let them land. Whereas a person that actually cared for their constituents would be out there fighting on their behalf. Not Hunt. He knows the old one two is about to land a killer punch. Namely financial collapse and the delightful soft touch of Reichsführer Goves special planning team. In which order depends on what happens to Guildford. The bloods going to spatter and Hunt will be nowhere to be seen.
MeaninglessMud
Local Government would have fewer financial problems if it paid more attention to the statutory guidance on investment and ensured that its accounts were audited. The STATUTORY GUIDANCE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT INVESTMENTS (3rd Edition) Issued under section 15(1)(a) of the Local Government Act 2003 and effective for financial years commencing on or after 1 April 2018 advises “a prudent investment policy will have two underlying objectives:
• Security – protecting the capital sum invested from loss; and
• Liquidity – ensuring the funds invested are available for expenditure when needed.”
Some local authorities excel at investment loss and too few recognise the consequences of the national debt the deficit and the cost of energy subsidies due to the mismanagement by governments of energy security and the energy market. Consensus requires suitable and sufficient understanding of the problem, Britain is broke.