‘A budget for everyone (although not in a good way)’ says leader of Conservative opposition on West Norfolk Council

In our latest Friday Politics column, Stuart Dark, the Conservative opposition leader on West Norfolk Council, discusses the budget...

West Norfolk Council has set its Budget for 24/25, affecting over 150,000 residents.

The headlines were: council tax increasing by the maximum permissible amount; fees and charges up in excess of 10% almost entirely across the board; a decrease costs target of 5% this year (thereby affecting services and delivery).

Essentially from this April we’ll all be paying more for the same or less.

The administration cited long-term underfunding by local government and other external pressures and an inherited financial challenge as the key drivers for this harsh budget, but the external LGA peer review stated:

The council has higher levels of reserves than its peers; Its finances were managed well even over the turbulent Covid and cost of living crisis years; and the outturn report by its finance officer for 22/23 highlighted an underspend ‘windfall’ payment of over £1.8m back in to the reserves for the new administration to make use of; With a carried over budget line of £3M set aside to support capital projects which would support much needed future revenue; Alongside a ‘funded budget’ position for the next three years.

So whilst times are challenging, the administration really was in a better position than many. Yet the financial plan attached to this budget shows the administration now needs to have an extra c.£5m to operate in the rest of its term. So what’s happened in just a few months?

We believe the pressures necessitating this dire budget have been caused by things much nearer to home. By way of example:

In August 2023, the new administration voted through a local ‘pay award’ for all c. 750 staff on the council and its subsidiary companies. It also awarded on top of this a one off £750 ‘cost of living payment’ to all staff.

Whilst we believe staff are the council’s biggest asset and should clearly receive a fair annual pay award, we believe the most concerning part is no one in the administration thought such a significant change needed even a simple challenge question of ‘how much is this likely cost?’

It is important to note these pay pressures are on top of any annual settlement negotiated for the next three years.

Turning to the ‘fees and charges’ increases, apparently needed to meet the council’s emerging budgetary pressures, like the above:

The administration did not really provide the council with any detailed financial data in each of the fee areas showing the justification or even the likely take by each increase; Officers confirmed the 10% or above, double rate of inflation move was a top down across the board ‘political decision’ ; The administration would not say if any consultation had taken place with anyone likely to be affected.

This general ‘put it on everything’ approach has led to things that generate minimal revenue impact but will undoubtedly cause pain like: The price of Radar keys giving access to disabled toilets going up; The price of football pitch fees going up; The fishing Industry having increased costs; ‘Alive’ Leisure prices going up; Town Hall wedding reception fees and crematorium fees going up; brown bins, car parking all going up

The compounding impact of each one of these increases is bad enough, but the fact that these have come in in such an unfocussed broad brush way with seemingly little justification of risk, little or no consultation, understanding of impact on users is even worse.

We as group strongly argued and voted against these blunt, unjustified increases and looked to our left to Labour councillors and right to other independent councillors who had both previously been very and publicly vocal about their opposition.

Sadly it would seem from this budget, such a hard-hitting raid on people’s pockets at a difficult time is apparently perfectly OK as long as it’s an ‘Independent/Lib Dem/Green coalition’ one and not a Conservative one. What was particularly unedifying at the end was seeing these same councillors clapping and whooping when they had just about got this budget through, with no humble, muted acknowledgement or acceptance of its likely impact.