Something seems to be seriously wrong with the way Ryedale deals with its accounts. This is not to suggest that officers or members have been acting in a manner which is negligent, unprofessional or unlawful. There just has to be something wrong with the system itself.

Who can forget how, last year, car park charges went up by 25% to cover an anticipated deficit on Revenue Account of £ 171,000 – which, by about this time last year had turned out to be a surplus of £260,000 on Revenue Account?

Since then, the Council has been through the budgeting process again. There has been a call for efficiencies and economies. A Whitehall mandarin called Gerschon has required Councils to come up with 7% savings on Revenue Account over a three year period. The Council has worked hard to achieve this target. We were so desperate to save money that we outsourced staff salary payments to York. By a small majority, the Council even decided to outsource its Revenues and Benefits function to a partnership which would be run from and controlled by Hambleton’s offices at Northallerton. The savings, we were told (after the expenditure of a massive £685,000 government bribe) would be £65,000 per annum – but not until three years after the start date – as clear a promise of “jam tomorrow” as any I know!

And now, what do we find? Is the Council short of money? Of course not. Has the Council spent all the money it was going to spend? Definitely not. It turns out that, last year the Council had spent £1,412,000 on capital projects compared with an original estimate of £3,450,000 – an underspend of over two MILLION pounds. Moreover, there was in Revenue (ie the account the Council Tax is paid into), a net surplus of £145,000.

Now, apart from the obvious questions on why this has happened, which might easily be explained in retrospect, this situation raises real issues in regard to foresight and monitoring. If there is a logical reason for not spending the two million pounds, was the underspend foreseen? If so, was the Council ever given advance warning of this? Did the Council have the necessary expertise on hand to ensure that the money was spent on time? If not, was the Council’s capital programme realistic in the first place? Was there a proper programme with each stage of every project scheduled within a given time frame? If not, why was the programme put forward in such an ambitious form?

The net revenue surplus raises similar questions: has the Council raised more money in Council Tax than it needed to? If so, why? Was there a fear that there might be a shortfall? If so, why was it necessary to cover the Council against this from Revenue, when it has huge capital reserves?

As regards monitoring both capital and revenue expenditure, Ryedale has a leaders’ group, a Gang of Four who were said to be Ryedale’s “best councillors”. That is why, we were told, the decision to appoint a new chief executive was delegated to them alone. So what steps did this elite take to keep themselves informed of the financial situation? Did they monitor it and keep it under continuous review? If not, why not? If they did monitor the situation, were the other members of the Council kept informed on a regular basis?

The more one considers this issue, the more questions come to mind. The Council has to set a budget every year. If the actual spending outcome is going to continue to vary so much from the estimated outcome, how can the Council be expected to set a balanced budget?

Further, for example, how can we be sure that the annual savings promised from outsourcing our Revenues and Benefits department really will be £65,000 in three years time? How can we be sure that we really will have “jam tomorrow”?