One Budget Area Reprieved. No Cuts Here.

We discovered that amongst hundreds of pages of reports, there was one area where Newham were unable to make any savings. Nor did they think that they would be able to make any in the future.

This came as something of a surprise as the Labour Group had voted and agreed that this was an area where the mayor should make major savings.

The mayor’s office currently spends about £1m a year.

At a contentious meeting earlier in the year, the majority of Labour councillors voted to reduce the spending on the mayor’s office. £1m pa, they thought, was a bit excessive.

Happily, we can now see the mayor’s response to the demands of her colleagues.

It is found in Appendix 1: MTFS Savings Tracker, on the very last page. (We say a big thank you to one of our eagle-eyed correspondents.)

It seems that the desire of the Labour Group to reduce expenditure by 50% was ignored. Instead, the mayor offered to reduce her nearly £1m budget by £100,000.

But then we discover that she has failed to achieve even this. 

Within the appendix, Resources for the Mayor’s Office, £100,000 is the target for savings. We discover that in respect of this particular saving, there is a 100% “Variance”, with the words “Total Non-Delivery” in parentheses. That is to say, they saved NOTHING. In more bureaucratic language, “the savings will not be delivered in 2024-25”. Or ever?

It doesn’t really give you confidence in her ability to effect savings across the board. Yet it is Mayor Fiaz who is leading the efforts to save £175m.

Fiaz is widely believed to be for the chop in 2026 so it matters little to her what happens to the council. Someone else can sort out the mess. Possibly. It is not inconceivable that the financial disaster she has wrought upon Newham Council will bedevil her successors till the end of the decade.

Despite the debacle that has characterised Fiaz’s term in office, there are Labour councillors who want to do the right thing and are embarrassed that Labour is about to announce a swathe of redundancies, (think Liverpool and Neil Kinnock 1985).

It is time to do some hard thinking and planning for the post Fiaz era. At least, that is what is necessary if you want to serve the people of the borough. If being on the council is primarily about a stepping stone to your personal future greatness, then you don’t really have to bother about the people you are supposed to be serving.