Balance your budget report

Mr Taggart's account was not inaccurate, but if he understood what I was saying (and I did speak slowly), he appears to have been rather selective in reporting it. May I explain?

1 We have not refused to "delve into our piggy bank" as Mr Taggart so elegantly describes our financial reserves. He would have heard me say that we are, in fact, to draw down from our reserves £219,000.

2 As I stated in my address to the council, much of our financial problem (and those of other Bucks districts) stems from the Bucks County Council Pension Fund performance failure (for us costing £430,000 per annum). This was reported. What was not reported was the extensive list, which I detailed, of frequently Government-inspired additional costs dumped upon us; for example, £150,000 of Best Value" (a wizard New Labour idea) audit and inspection costs, £80,000 from a higher-than-expected national pay settlement, refuse contract national formula indexing £80,000, abandoned cars and fly-tipping £74,000, the post-September 11 hike in our insurance premium by £66,000, and so on. The Conservative administration did not invent these "spiralling costs" (Taggart again): we simply have to wrestle with them on behalf of residents, and I think we are doing this effectively.

3 An attentive reporter would have heard me say that from our £11m balances, the council is presently committed to placing £4m into the homelessness fund, for housing development (not reported), and is required to carry a revenue reserve varying between £1m and £1m (again, not reported). Reductions in bank interest have cut the interest generated by our reserves steadily from £900,000 per annum, through £450,000 and still it falls (not reported) interest which is used to soften the impact of our council tax (not reported).

4 With nothing of intellectual value to bring to the debate, it was glaringly obvious that the Lib Dems would be compelled to fall back on their well-worn argument that we should further erode our balances (fully reported). The Lib Dems have a reputation for "talking big" about spending generously today, with little concern for sensible financial management over the medium term, and their Councillor Jones did not fail us on this occasion. Unfortunately, your reporter did fail us, and your readers, once more. He failed to mention my comment that more spending on local services can be funded only by Government grants (wholly unpredictable and minuscule), by interest received, by council tax, or from balances; as interest rates fall, ideally we should increase our balances, rather than go on a Lib Dem sponsored Big Spend. Once spent, our reserves can be replaced only by asset sales, increased charges or by vastly increased council tax levels, which may be a Lib Dem "solution", but it is not ours, nor is it in the interests of all our residents. All of this was, I believe, very clearly explained at Council. None of it featured in your front page report.

5 The report of my comment that "in Chiltern a Band D householder's tax will go up by £8.92 in a year under 20p a week" was absolutely incorrect and misleading to your readers. At Council, I was at pains to spell out that all the figures which I quoted related only to Chiltern's element of the final council tax. The Band D increase for Chiltern's services will indeed be only 20p per week not a bad performance, I suggest, in very difficult circumstances. However the full council tax will have to include which ever increases are declared by BCC, the Police and by the Towns/Parishes.

In light of your newspaper's reputation for fair and balanced reporting, this item seems out of character and not wholly informative. It might justify editorial reflection, for if your reporter had troubled to contact myself (as he has done previously) and not rely solely on the Lib Dems' direction, perhaps we might all have been spared.

Don Phillips

Leader,

Chiltern District Council

February 15, 2002 11:00