Councillor Gareth Barnard, Conservative executive member for children’s services and education, said: “It is easy to see an under-spend as a naive indication of mismanagement, but this isn’t.
“Financial management is something many councils, usually run by socialists, really struggle with."
“This is really, really good news and puts us in a strong position to take on whatever budget issues we may face next year.”
Chief executive Mr Wheadon said that there are various problems the authority faces with regard to funding streams, and that we don’t yet know the amount of money we will get from central Government. We don’t know how much of the business rates we’ll get when that system changes. The council is currently working on three possible scenarios with regards to the budget while we wait to find out.”
The Community Infrastructure Levy - Preliminary Draft Charging Schedule consultation is also currently running until Monday 13th August 2012.