Councillor disputes claim that cash-strapped Chesterfield council is like Oliver Twist - and has more in common with the 'Artful Dodger'

The Conservative Government has agreed to £600m of additional funding for struggling local authorities in England but only £100m of that total will be shared among district and borough councils with £500m to be allocated for wider county councils for adult and children’s social care.

Chesterfield Borough Council Deputy Leader, Cllr Amanda Serjeant, described the still-awaited handout, at a recent scrutiny meeting, as a ‘tiny bit more’ and compared the cash-strapped local authority to the mistreated and poverty-stricken Charles Dickens’ character Oliver Twist asking for more food.

However, Lib Dem Borough Cllr Tom Snowdon, who believes council overspending has played a part in the local authority’s plight, said: “The comments by Labour Councillor and Cabinet Member Amanda Serjeant simply cannot be left unchallenged.

“Cllr Serjeant says that Chesterfield Borough Council is like Oliver Twist with his begging bowl, asking for more.”

The Council Deputy Leaders’s analogy with Victorian author Charles Dickens’ mistreated character Oliver Twist echoed a famous moment in the book by the same name when the starving, poverty-stricken child is reduced to politely asking for more food from workhouse manager Mr Bumble.

Cllr Serjeant, who is also the Cabinet Member for Finance and Asset Management, had told the authority’s Resilient Council Scrutiny Committee meeting, on January 25: “We get a tiny bit more. A bit like Oliver Twist.”

She added that the latest Government funding boost is only expected to amount to a one per cent uplift and it is not expected to be received in time to support the authority’s fight to balance an estimated budget shortfall of £4m for the 2024-25 financial year.

However, Cllr Snowdon has alluded that the council may have more in common with Charles Dickens’ character the streetwise, loveable child rogue, the Artful Dodger, from the same novel than Oliver Twist after listing a number of claims in a statement under the heading ‘Labour Dodge Responsibility for Overspend’.

The Lib Dem Councillor, who also sits on the Resilient Council Scrutiny Select Committee, has disputed claims that the council has spent the last 14 years making the authority more lean and efficient.

He claims that between 2017 to 2023 the council has considerably increased its staffing.

Cllr Snowdon said: “As a rough rule of thumb every 30 or so council staff costs around £1m in salary, National Insurance and Pension contributions. Only now does the council say it has to reduce staffing to save money.”

He claims that for ten years the council has run two loss-making cafes at the Market Hall and Queens Park Leisure Centre which he says, last year lost £120,000 between them.

Cllr Snowdon also claims that in 2018 to 2019 the Auditors’ Report said the council needed to sort out its structural deficit which meant it was overspending by £1m a year and that in 2023 Labour took another £1.292m out of reserves to ‘plug deficits’ in an election year.

He added that a year ago the Derbyshire Times also published a story that the council had paid out £2.5m in staff bonuses in 2022.

READ THIS: Chesterfield Borough Council paid out £2.5million in staff bonuses in 2022 - the largest bonus bill of any local authority

The Lib Dem councillor also pointed out that the council recently voted in favour of nearly a 15per cent yearly pay allowance increase for councillors after Liberal Democrat Leader, Cllr Paul Holmes, had called for a pay-freeze.

However, the council’s decision had followed a recommendation from an independent panel to increase the allowance accordingly after it had considered the council’s previous two-year freeze on allowances.

Despite the council’s difficulties, Cllr Serjeant told the recent scrutiny meeting that Chesterfield Borough Council is one of the most efficient organisations in the public sector and that auditors recently raised no issues and they were satisfied with the council’s prudence.

She also argued that, like many councils across the country, its financial plight is down to uncertainty over Government under-funding along with difficulties posed by inflation rates, the cost of living crisis, rising costs and demands and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The council has stated that as it works towards balancing its budget by considering cost-saving proposals as part of a Budget Implementation Plan it will have to reduce its workforce by looking at voluntary redundancies and voluntary retirement options while avoiding compulsory redundancies and this may also mean ceasing some services and reducing others.

Chesterfield Borough Council has already approved increasing fees at Chesterfield’s town centre car parks by about ten per cent and it is introducing nominal fees to its free Residents Parking Scheme from the start of the financial year.

The council is also considering the use and management of its buildings and parks, how it supports public advice agencies, and introducing more digitalisation methods.

Cllr Serjeant said that it is not taking any decisions lightly under the current financial circumstances but it has to legally balance its budget in a transparent way which is why it has also been running consultations.

She told the recent scrutiny committee meeting: “We do not take any of these decisions lightly. There are no easy choices when it comes to council finances for any council. I think every council is facing extreme adversity when it comes to facing council budgets.”

As part of the Government’s latest funding announcement, the rural services delivery grant will rise by £15m in recognition of the challenges faced by authorities serving dispersed populations.