Skidder Shorts No 17 - A Message from SMBC's Chief Executive....

Back in March the Chief Executive of Labour Sandwell Council (a politically-restricted post) tweeted to his beloved Leader, Darren "The Turdmeister" Cooper, in response to a critical tweet from me:

"Sandwell out of control? Sound budget*, council tax frozen**, services protected as far as we can***, new leisure centres****."

* A sound balanced budget is actually a legal requirement!

** Council tax was only frozen so that SMBC could benefit from additional freeze grant funding from the cuddly, er, Coalition Government. Labour then shafted their own hard-pressed tenants with a huge inflation-busting rent rise.

*** Note the pathetic caveat "as far as we can". Youth services decimated, arts provision destroyed, the library service castrated, many more job losses etc etc

**** The ludicrous Cooper is determined that every town in the Borough will have a new leisure centre whether it needs one or not. The Council's own Leisure Trust was deemed inadequate to run the new West Brom Centre which has been farmed out to a private company. The allegedly cash-strapped Labour Council is BORROWING huge sums for these new centres and mortgaging the Borough for years to come with this crazed policy.

And so according to Jan Britton, the Chief Exec, everything is rosy in the earthly paradise of Sandwell - which makes the failure to disclose the auditor's report with their annual accounts all the more mystifying. And then there is this from the minutes of next week's full Council meeting:

"Members (of the Audit Committee) noted that the Council had SIGNIFICANT GOVERNANCE ISSUES arising in the following areas:-

i) Children’s Services;
ii) the resilience of the medium term financial strategy;
iii) compliance with procurement and contract procedure rules;
iv) business continuity planning;
v) health and social care reforms;
vi) ICT."

Great job, Jan. Great job!

THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - A COMMUNITY BLOG

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