There may be significant changes to come at Nottingham City Council and how it is able to run the city. The Government announced on Thursday, June 23 that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Michael Gove is minded to send in commissioners to intervene in the running of the authority amid concerns regarding its finances.
The collapse of Robin Hood Energy cost an estimated £38m and cash from the council's Housing Revenue Account had been misspent on the wrong services. The Penn Report, commissioned by the council, found it had misspent up to around £22.8m since 2014/15 while Nottingham City Homes had misspent up to £17.1m.
So, with the prospect of commissioners being appointed at the council, what will this mean for taxpayers in Nottingham? It's worth pointing out that, at this point, any talk about what government commissioners would do is hypothetical - they have not yet been dispatched to Nottingham City Council, though there are clear plans in place for this to happen.
Government minded to send commissioners to take over City Council - read more here.
Fears 'is there anything else?' after £40m misspent by council - read more here.
Nottingham City Council has until July 7 to make representations against the decision which the leader of the authority has called "disappointing". Under the plans, the Secretary of State would transfer to the commissioners all functions associated with the governance and scrutiny of strategic decision making, the strategic financial management of the authority and the appointment and dismissal of certain roles within the council.
It means their job would be to try to sort out the council's financial situation and they would be given the power to amend budgets when they pose a "risk to the authority’s ability to fulfil its best value duty". Crucially, the commissioners' expenses would be paid for by the council itself. Sir Tony Redmond, currently acting chair of a government-appointed board monitoring the council, would be the government's preferred lead commissioner at the council.
Professor Peter Murphy is the Director of the Public Policy and Management Research Group within the Centre for Economics, Policy and Public Management at Nottingham Trent University Business School. Prof Murphy noted that no new issues had so far been detailed by the Government and so it seems the decision had been made based on previous financial problems at the authority.
He said: "They have known about these issues for a long time, I would interpret that they are not content with the speed at which they are addressing these and they are not happy about how robust and quick they are operating - or they have found more [issues]. That's my view."
He added that councils usually only get a matter of days to respond under these circumstances - whereas Nottingham City Council has been given two weeks. He continued: "I get the impression that they [the Government] still want the city council to run the operational side to quite a lot of services and the commissioners to be specifically focused on the finances."
Leader of Nottingham City Council David Mellen said he believed that, if commissioners were brought in by the Government, this would not change services for local people Nottingham, for example bin collection and how they pay their council tax. But he admitted that until it happens it's not certain to know exactly how the authority will be affected.
Cllr Mellen told Nottinghamshire Live: "I don't believe it will change things for ordinary services for people in Nottingham, their responsibility would be for strategic decision making, decisions which are made by senior staff. Of course, I don't know an answer for sure until they get here.
"We have a chance to respond so it is not certain, but it is likely to happen."
Andrew Rule, leader of the Conservative party in Nottingham, told Nottinghamshire Live he believed the changes could filter down to frontline services such as bin collection. He said: "I am trying to get a better understanding of it myself - it is massively unchartered territory.
"My understanding is that when commissioners come in they will effectively run the show, in consultation with elected members and officers. Finance is so deep rooted in everything - it is the be all and end all, essentially, and we haven't got enough money."
Nottingham City Council announced on Friday, June 24 that it has brought in over £30m of income from selling land and property it owns over the last two years. The authority says it has £90m more in the pipeline over the next few years.
Cllr Mellen added: “We are not selling things in an unplanned way – it is properly assessed and we seek to sell it for as much as possible, unless they are community assets where there is some social value to be gained. Most of the properties that bring in larger amounts are commercial properties rather than community assets.”
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