You can download the District Council’s latest Financial Management Report here.
Here’s an extract:
3 OVERALL FINANCIAL POSITION
3.1 The results to the end of June 2014 indicate that for the General Fund, the year-end position is forecast to meet the original estimate of ?10.39m.
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3.2 The main factors that are reducing the overall net expenditure are:-
Land Charge income is forecast to be ?20,000 above original budget.
Income from pre application planning advice is expected to exceed original budget by about ?6,000
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3.3 The main factors that are increasing the overall net expenditure are:-
Income from car park pay and display machines is forecast to be about ?80,000 below original budget. The original budget included charging for Saturday afternoons, and for the tariff increase to be from April 2014.
Income generated from the newly installed Columbarium is forecast to be around ?17,000 below original budget, due to lack of demand.
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4 ADDITIONAL FINANCIAL INFORMATION
4.1 The Council?s Allocation Plan is subject to a judicial review. Proceedings are drawing to a conclusion. Costs will be incurred on legal fees and a decision that is unfavourable to the Council could incur additional costs depending on any requirements included in the Court?s decision. The estimated cost will be in the region of ?40,000 – ?75,000. This will be met from earmarked reserves.
4.2 Following the flooding that happened at the Council?s depot last year, costs for providing temporary accommodation for officers is estimated to be ?54,000. This will be covered in the majority by insurance compensation of ?49,000. The net cost of ?5,000 has been incurred as temporary accommodation was provided longer than needed whilst options for renovating the depot offices are considered.
I am not an accountant but overall RDC seems to me to run the district very well. Rubbish is collected, streets kept clean, parks maintained etc, no loony lefty spending on mad projects. OK we have an issue with the allocation of housing but I ask this, what would either Millibonkers or Euroclaggys mob do differently ? ( given the current financial position left to us by Labour )
One thing that Ron and myself would do differently is to abolish the cabinet system. This would be a win-win. A committee system is cheaper and more democratic!
Chris, ok, but what would you & Ron do differently to run the district in terms of the “day to day” stuff as mentioned in my post ?
Thats a fair question Oz, which I will respond to tomorrow!
OK Oz… its’been a long day and I’ll probably forget a couple of things but anyway…
Let me set the background a bit.
We have a district that has always been pretty harshly treated by central government, over the last 3 governments (Conservative, Labour and Coalition) we have received a lot less grant, and allowed to spend less, than most other councils. That has forced us to have a pretty efficient financial setup at Rochford and gave us precious little opportunity to indulge in madcap schemes! I’m not an accountant either, but I think we have always had decent financial structures. The current Tory administration inherited this from the Lib Dems, and we inherited it from the previous Tory administration in the 80s.
We are blessed by having a lot of good citizens in our district, who are good at paying council tax and doing recycling. We are disadvantaged by being under a county council that isn’t so well run financially, hasn;t given our area a fair share of the cake, has a dysfunctional highways system and refuses to fully pay for the grass cutting that is it’s responsibility in our district!
What would I do differently? Recycling is doing well, I wouldn’t want to change a thing. I’d save money by scrapping the cabinet system and spend the savings on things like an extra planning enforcement officer, more flood prevention, a better Rayleigh Arts Festival and not increasing car parking charges so often. I’d also want to discuss with other members how to improve our parks.
But the big cultural impact would be by bringing back committees. It’s hard to explain the pernicious effect of the cabinet and the whip system. But trust me, we need to have a system that allows all 39 Councillors to properly contribute , and to share their individual ward problems so that we can work together to find solutions, instead of being kept isolated from each other. It would also actually attract a better quality of candidate to stand. This might be coming over a bit over-idealistic but you need to study the system to see how bad it is at the moment!
I’d also want the council to listen to the views of residents a bit more sincerely than it does at the moment…
Chris, I think more and more of the electorate are realising just how disadvantaged the Cabinet system leaves most of the councillors we elect. I think most of us see no point in electing 39 councillors if only 11 or 12 of them are going to make all the decisions and then apply the party whip to make sure that decision goes through. If the whole council is up for re-election in 2016 then that is the chance the electorate have to change this by voting out the dictatorial majority. No overall control would be good, that would force co-operation and discussion, and possibly even make all councillors listen to the residents wishes as well.
The things that are urgently needed in our ward are Highway matters and out of the hands of R.D.C. Road repairs and common sense in doing them. e.g road works on Rawreth Lane when Beeches Road is closed. A repair van was parked over a large hole in the road and when I asked workers they told me they could not do this at the same time as not on their job list.
Bruce , it’s a game of playing the rules to advantage –
RDC are the architects of the North of London Rd scheme , knowing full well they can
shrug their shoulders and say Highways is ECC ( no budget ) responsibility not RDC.
The Developers know this game too and are not interested in the impact on local traffic so it will be the same old it’s ” ECC you need to talk to” routine.
We all know that Rawreth Lane is already not coping with traffic volume , all the junctions are problematic ( especially Hambro corner ) and it is the main artery to Hullbridge where they will also be building another 500 houses.
So a handful of us will put in well structured objections via the system , be totally ignored and this area will gridlock and then people will moan about it – too late.
And where is the lead in fighting it , Parish Council / Town Council / Ward Councillors?, no ” you can’t buck the system ” , only RAG have made any impact on
people’s awareness of what is going on.
Totally agree with Jim the only real opposition has been RAG, shame they for whatever reason didnt field candidates in the local elections