Nottingham City Council has approved extra spending of £2.4 million to "accelerate" improvements being made in the wake of issues such as the collapse of Robin Hood Energy. The authority has been given a list of 39 things to do and it does not have enough resources to meet the "strict" deadlines that each one comes with.
The instructions, issued on February 15, include completing the financing of £17 million related to money misspent from the housing revenue account. They have been issued by the Improvement and Assurance Board (IAB), which was first appointed in Nottingham in January 2021.
Although Nottingham City Council has avoided Government commissioners being sent in to run it several times, the IAB was given more powers over the council last year. The changes mean that the board has the power to direct rather than guide the council.
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The 39 instructions form part of this, but the council says the extra £2.4 million of spending is needed to meet the deadlines set by the IAB. Councillor David Mellen, the Leader of Nottingham City Council, said at a meeting on March 21: "They have imposed 39 instructions on us which have dated times by which they should be complied with.
"These are significant challenges for the council. Most of them are not new to us, some of them are straightforward, others certainly aren't.
"The money is a significant amount of money, but we are assured that this will help us comply with the things that have been given us. Some... need additional people on a short-term basis in order for us to meet the time deadlines with which we are faced."
Ross Brown, the council's Corporate Director for Finance and Resources, explained that the money was needed because the organisation usually only had resources to deal with one year of accounts. The IAB has asked for "all outstanding matters" to be resolved for the last three years of accounts.
The £2.4 million allocation of funding, approved by Tuesday's Executive Board meeting, comes from the council's reserves. This is despite a report from the authority saying: "This reserve contains sufficient capacity to meet the funding requirement, but it should be recognised that the council's overall levels of reserves are very limited, and in effect the use of this reserve for this purpose continues to place pressure on the council's overall financial resilience."
Leader of the Conservative Group, Councillor Andrew Rule, questioned at the meeting why the extra money was only being allocated now. He said: "It's encouraging to see the extra resource that's been allocated to the finance side of things, although it's taken some time to get to this point.
"The issue with improving financial management to meet instruction deadlines and working across three years of accounts has been a long-standing issue. In a way it's a bit disappointing... I thought this should have been the focus long before now."
But Mel Barrett, the Chief Executive of Nottingham City Council, said: "In terms of the council's self-written improvement plan, the reflections have been that the plans are good, the issue has been about pace and timing. In terms of instructions that impose some very strict time limits on the council, additional resources are required to accelerate delivery."
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