Gloucester City Council update
You may have seen the news this afternoon that Gloucester City Council is in major financial difficulty. There is no way of sugarcoating it- the council are in serious debt, having overspent their budgets for the last several years. They are asking the government for emergency funding to keep them afloat. Without that, the reality is bankruptcy.
I am appalled by this news for a number of reasons. Firstly, the financial mismanagement that's been exposed today will have an enormous impact on staff at the City Council, some of whom will lose their jobs. Secondly, the people of Gloucester will be seriously impacted by this mismanagement, with services cut, discretionary spending seriously limited and increases to charges like the green and bulky waste collections.
To deal with the huge impact of this financial mismanagement, the City Council are proposing to take a number of actions. Some of these actions include:
• Closing Blackfriars Priory as a wedding and events venue from May next year
• Reducing opening hours at the Museum of Gloucester to four days a week
• Reducing funding for events and festivals
• Removing Councillor grants
• Reducing the staffing and activity of the Community Engagement team
• Introducing a mutually agreed resignation scheme for staff
The council will be issuing a report in the coming days. I want to reassure residents that I will listen to their views and work on a cross-party basis for the good of our city and to ensure as many frontline services as possible are protected.
I have only found out today from the City Council the findings of their internal investigations and I am disappointed they did not raise this with me as soon as they became aware of the extent of the damage that had been done. Since learning the facts this morning I have taken immediate action and have spoken to colleagues in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government to make the case for supporting us. I will be focusing my attention on doing everything I can to encourage the department to bail the City Council out with emergency funding.
How did this happen? At the moment we know that the budgets for each year from 2021 were wrong. In reality this meant the council didn't know what money they actually had to spend. Beyond this, things aren't clear. There are serious questions to be answered about how it is possible to run such large overspends year on year without anyone noticing.
The coming weeks and months are likely to be difficult for our city. If I am honest, I am angry about the chaos and anxiety this news will cause. The people of Gloucester deserve so much better than this.
Gloucester is my home and it remains the privilege of my life to serve you all. I will take every opportunity I can to ensure we have the best possible chance of recovery.
