Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Professional shroud-waving?

Well, items 9, 10 and 11 did generate some debate today - but the most significant point of the day (for me!) came at item 7 on the 'revenue budget update' ...

... that revenue report shows a decrease in the required 'budget gap' for 2010/11 from nearly £40million in the Long Term Financial Plan (as of October 2009) to under £28million today (the figure on CPOL is wrong as an amended appendix was tabled - says it all really) ...

... that's right - the 'budget gap' has reduced by well over £1million per week since the Long Term Financial Plan was launched by the Council in October last year.

When a senior Finance Officer, who shall remain nameless, was asked by me if he could offer any absolute future assurance about the 'budget gap' figures now being presented for years 2 and 3, given how badly wrong the figures for year 1 were back in October, the answer I received was something like:

The only absolute assurance I can give you Councillor Burns is that the figures for years 2 and 3 will not be correct.

So - there you have it ... the constantly parroted £90million of savings required over 3-years isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Shroud-waving, I think it's called :-(

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