General

Westminster City Council has lost £1 million in interest because of the £16.25 million invested by the Council in now-failed Icelandic Banks, according to information gained by Labour Councillors.

In response to an enquiry from Labour Councillors, the Director of Finance Barbara Moorhouse told Councillors:

“The amount of interest lost, calculated assuming all Icelandic deposits fully matured, would have been £1.0m.”

Read more: Council loses £1M in interest

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Westminster Council is slowly paving the way for a TOTAL privatisation of all it's key services.

In recent weeks, Council Leader Colin Barrow has been making a series of press statements out lining the benefits of "Foundation Councils" and it's widely rumoured that WCC will become one of the first.

Writing on Conservative Home’s local government blog, the leader of Westminster City Council, Cllr Colin Barrow said the foundation concept had been developed with Hammersmith & Fulham and Wandsworth.

Under the proposals, foundation councils would be given powers to:

• set local fees and charges, including variable business rates, to enable them to recover costs and generate a profit for reinvestment in local public services
• generate income and save money through full freedom to trade and share services
• exempt them from regulatory burdens, including the excess of Ofsted and Care Quality Commission requirements. “We recognise that in areas of high risk social care, assurances are needed but these two regimes have gone beyond ‘safeguarding’ to regulate local authority activity in these areas,” Barrow claimed
• introduce bye-laws and manage the public realm without reference to specific enabling legislation
• present ‘offers’ to central government for more specific powers, freedoms and flexibilities in particular areas, such as employment and skills services, where it can be demonstrated that these would improve performance, increase satisfaction, and reduce cost.

All well and good but with Westminster Council's previous track record this would give them the ticket to basically do as they wish without hardly any accountability.

If WCC became a Foundation Council it would pave the way to privatise just about all council services which Westminster Council has been trying to achieve for years. This even includes areas such as Social Services and in recent weeks feasibility studies have already started to take place.

What does this mean for staff ? Invariably, it means massive job loses on a scale thats never been seen before. No doubt private companies will "re-employ" many of the staff but this will mean a loss of their public service benefits if they decide to transfer.

Basically it means a radically different council to the one we know now. But will it provide better services, that are more efficient and cheaper to run ? On the basis of previous experience we think not..

Despite a £20 million hole in the Council’s budget, which has led to £60 million of cuts over the next three years, Westminster Conservatives found no difficulty in spending nearly £10,000 on a ‘Living City 2010 Summer Reception’ at Westminster Abbey on 1st July.

Attended by 151 people, the Reception costs were £9,381 of which food was £1,680 and drinks were £1,123 (97 bottles of wine, 25 litres of orange juice, 21 bottles of water). Other costs included venue hire, and other catering (services, equipment, etc), printing invitations etc make up the remainder of the total.

Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg, Leader of the Opposition, said: “There is no excuse for this sort of extravagance at a time when children’s play schemes are being axed, charges are going up and staff are being sacked right across the Council. Westminster Conservatives are so used to spending the Council’s money as it were there own that they have lost touch with reality. In this day and age it is simply not acceptable and totally unnecessary to spend so much on entertaining. The money would be much better spent on front-line services.”

In his speech to Party guests guests, Council Leader Colin Barrow stressed that “current levels of spending are unsustainable” and that “we have to find a way of doing things differently or not doing them at all”.

So that it'll be no more "lavish" Receptions will it Colin ?

Westminster City Council is spending £13 million a year employing 281 temporary staff, with an average salary of £46,250 per temporary employee, according to figures uncovered by Labour Councillors just days after the Council announced a £60 million package of cuts to front line services and job losses right across the Council.

Labour Councillors say that spending millions of pounds a year on expensive temporary staff is very poor value for money and represents another example of the incompetent way in which the Council is being run by the Conservatives.

Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg, Leader of the Labour Group, said: “Huge amounts are being spent by the Council on expensive temporary staff at the same time as massive cuts in service are planned.

Source: Labour Matters