11 January (Part 2) - Leader Leaf Late and Long
Judged solely on their performances at public meetings there was never more
than two or three Tory Councillors on Bexley Council who with a mixture of
showmanship and a convincing display of claimed expertise appeared to be on top
of their game. After Gareth Bacon buzzed off to Orpington it left David Leaf as
the sole pretender and inevitably he gained the throne at the end of last year.
Councillor Leaf is renowned for his long speeches, encyclopedic knowledge of
Council finances and its history, petty Council rules and his readiness to put
the Labour opposition in its place, so I was disappointed when he was
less than convincing in rebutting Labour’s Bexleyheath MP’s claim that
Starmer was going to give Bexley more money than usual in this and coming years. It seemed
unlikely; the Prime Minister has a track record of dishonesty but the new
Council Leader did not to my mind satisfactorily prove it on this occasion.
@tonyofsidcup - who else? - took David to task in his own inimitable way. On
22nd December he emailed David Leaf essentially as follows. “The trouble is, I
struggle to see any cuts in the data you shared. What am I missing? Where are
the Labour cuts?” Not perhaps the most patient of chaps, on 29th December with
scant regard for two days of holiday and a weekend, @tony asked me to bring the
Council Leader’s silence to your attention. I told him it was too early but the continuing silence led to
a blog on 7th January.
I found it personally disappointing. Disappointed that David Leaf looked like
losing out to a Labour MP and disappointed that @tony was right to suggest my
confidence in the new Leader was misplaced.
But things changed yesterday. David Leaf wrote an extraordinarily long and
detailed explanation of why Bexley will not benefit from Labour’s claimed largesse. I
expect David half expected his reply to appear here but I am not sure that is
entirely fair without express permission. And it might bore most readers into submission, but here are some key points.
• The data [on a Government web page see below] shows quite clearly that Bexley is
receiving a cut in cash grants from the Government in real terms once inflation
is taken into account, and in cash terms once the new funding formula is fully implemented.
• The current financial year [2025/26] is the last year where the existing funding formula
and distribution is used. In 2026/27 and 2027/28 there is a transition between
the existing formula (the Legacy Funding Assessment) and the new
formula (the Fair Funding Allocation), and in 2028/29 the new funding formula is implemented in full.
• Once the Council Tax Requirement is removed from Core Spending Power, the
amount of cash grants Bexley will receive from Government reduces in cash terms
between the current financial year, 2025/26, and when the new formula is fully implemented in 2028/29.
• Labour has used 2024/25 as the baseline year and
claim that there has been a boost to the Council’s finances of £43·8m
(£238·4m in 2024/25 rising to £282·1m in 2028/29), which is based on Core Spending Power,
but you can see from the table, once the Council Tax assumptions about Council Tax rates increasing
and growth in the Council Tax Base are removed – an assumption that receipts
from Council Tax rise by £38·5m (£141·4m in 2024/25 rising to £179·9m in
2028/29) – the cash increase from Government grants is about £5·3m.
That’s a 5·5% cash increase across the four year period. 5·5% is well
below the rate of inflation forecast for the period and therefore represents a
real terms cut in the cash grants from government coming to Bexley.
• On average, across the country and across London, there is an increase
in grant funding and therefore Bexley’s share of the national pot and
London-wide pot
is reducing, leaving us worse off as funding goes up overall but goes down for Bexley.
There is more and presumably David Leaf will
make a very long speech at the next Cabinet or Finance meeting; and firmly put the Labour MP in his place.
Even @tony has come to the conclusion that Labour have been pulling a
short-term fast one. My faith in David is retored.
The data table to which David refers is
here.