We're still paying the price of previous council's blunders, says new administration
The Conservative administration of Ealing Council this weekreleased the costs facing taxpayers to put right the damage done by the previous Labour administration discredited Response Programme.
The £61 million spent on Response was supposed to fully integrate Council services through state of the art IT, whilst also producing a number of cash savings in the running of the Council. This is the equivalent of over £539 for every household in the Borough.
So far the total savings made from Response amount to just £758,000. The previous council's projected savings when it was trying to sell in the programme were somewhat more ambitious:
2005/06 - £1m
2006/07 - £6m
2007/08 - £9m
2008/09 - £12m
Despite the massive injection of taxpayer money into Response, neither the savings nor the integrated service approach were achieved. But the costly impact of this programme is still being felt by Ealing Council taxpayers.
The new Conservative administration says it has identified a number of black holes, currently amounting to £3.2 million - and that's just for the 2007/08 revenue budget. They say this is money that could have been used to fund better services or reduce Council Tax.
Cllr David Scott, Portfolio Holder for Finance and Performance said:
“Labour’s Response Programme was a total disgrace and remains a shocking example of how not to modernise a Council. It was introduced without a proper business plan and has left this Borough with huge borrowing levels as a result. Labour said that what would emerge is a Council with integrated services through a hi-tec IT system and that millions of pounds of savings would be achieved as a result. Both were pure fantasy and the residents of this Borough are now paying the price of Labour’s incompetence”.
Here's the Conservative administration's break down of where our money went:
Area and budget reference number |
Description of Labour’s budget fudges |
COST |
ICT (reference number 35) |
Funding for the ongoing provision of Information Management Group – responsible for all Freedom of Information, DPA. IT compliance, data and information management and Geographic Information Systems management. Transferred to ICT in 2006 from Response but without provision for costs beyond 2006/2007.
|
£659,000 |
ICT (reference number 36) |
Transfer of staff costs from capital to revenue. Staff costs are revenue costs, but Response transferred some staff to being paid by capital expenditure. This is not allowed in these circumstances and therefore has been required to be transferred back to the revenue budget.
|
£508,000 |
ICT (reference number 33) |
Disaster Recovery at Perceval House. Despite the millions spent by Labour on the Response Programme, no system has been put in place to enable the council to have records backed up and available in event of a disaster. This is a basic IT requirement.
|
£407,000 |
ICT (reference number 32) |
Labour did not factor in to its baseline budget revenue costs for support of ICA and shared service applications. |
£161,000 |
Customer Services (reference numbers 3-7) |
Labour’s archive at the Greenford Depot which it said would have capacity for many years is virtually full. Contract has been taken out with a storage facility in Wiltshire to enable records to be stored. No costs incorporated into the budget for the running of the registry facility (cleaning, maintenance, heating, lighting, water), together with an Archive Assistant post – all assumed to be funded from mythical Response Savings
|
£222,000 |
Customer Services (reference number 2) |
Labour assumed that the Response programme would enable a reduction of 4-5 full time employees in Customer Services and therefore no funding exists for these posts after March 2007. Two staff have had to be re-instated into the budget. |
£50,000 |
Street Operations (reference number 13) |
Labour promised to undertake the cost of admittance to the Local Government Pension Scheme and contributions in connection with 80 staff who were transferred from Cardinal to ECT, but they did not factor these costs in to the service budget.
|
£215,000 |
Built Environment (reference number 16) |
Planning Delivery Grant. Labour did not factor this into its baseline budgets wrongly assuming the Government would cover the shortfall on the Development Control Budget. |
£325,000 |
Marketing and Communications (reference number 39) |
The team was transferred from the Response Programme without funding in the base budget from 2007/2008. New investment required to continue it past the start of April |
£178,000 |
Facilities Management (reference number 28) |
Labour assumed a wildly inflated forecast on the Halls income budget in order to make the books look good. This gap must be filled. |
£450,000 |
Total |
£3,175,000 |
For more information contact Cllr David Scott on 07977 121 135
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