Is the New Budget Just a “Shell Game”

Newham Council have agreed, after much internal dissent, a budget. Central to the budget is the plan to sell £16m worth of capital assets.

On the same day as the council meeting that agreed the budget the BBC disclosed that 19 English councils had been given permission to sell their capital assets in order to subsidise their revenue costs (see list below).

Newham is not one of them.

It may be that the DCLG will issue a second list shortly, or maybe not. Currently Newham are relying on a budget that requires the sale of assets that they have no permission to sell. If that permission is not forthcoming, there will be only one way to find the money. It will mean more cuts and no amount of letter writing from the voluntary sector will prevent them.

One question that this raises is who knew what? 

The BBC reported on the same day as the council meeting. This suggests that the councils allowed to sell off assets also knew by then, if not a day before. What did Newham know? Had the Director of Resources been informed? Did the mayor know? 

We ask this because if they knew, it would appear that they have presented a budget that they knew to be fundamentally flawed. It might be worth the opposition councillors enquiring as to what was known by whom.

The nineteen councils given flexibility to sell capital assets are:

Birmingham

• Bradford

• Cheshire East

• Croydon

• Cumberland

• Eastbourne

• Havering

• Medway

• Middlesbrough

• North Northamptonshire

• Nottingham

• Plymouth

• Slough

• Somerset

• Southampton

• Stoke-on-Trent

• Thurrock

• West Northamptonshire

• Woking