The City Council has reported an underspend of £494K for the year 2015/16. Cllr Jean Fooks who is a member of the Finance Scrutiny Panel, noticed that in fact the city had spent almost £2m less than its budget of £23.3m. About £1m was due to projects not having been completed, or even started in some cases, and this has been carried forward to be spent in 2016/17.  Of the rest, £360k was allocated at the last minute to bids not originally proposed, mostly extra spend not publicly agreed.

It looks as if Council Tax did not need to be raised as it was. LibDems asked why there had been no public discussion of how the £361k was to be spent and have queried this use of resources.

Lib Dem councillors will be keeping a very close eye on the Labour City Council accounts for this year and the proposals for 2017/18.