Ipswich’s £3.5m housing cuts sent back to the drawing board

Ipswich Borough Council’s plans to cut £3.5m from its housing budget have been dealt a blow as an all-party committee of councillors sent them back to the drawing board.

The committee was shocked to learn that Ipswich Borough Council’s Executive was prepared to enter into a massive contract with a firm of consultants to deliver the savings, without possessing even basic information about the project.

It emerged during a meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee that:

* Only two Executive councillors knew the full details of the contract - but neither of them was present at the meeting that made the decision.

* There was no breakdown of how the £3.5m savings were to be made,leaving Executive councillors with no idea whether that figure was realistic.

* No justification was provided for the level of the consultants’ fees.

Labour blasts Ipswich Borough Council over £3.5m cuts secrecy

Ipswich Borough Council has been attacked over a “wall of secrecy” surrounding plans to make £3.5m “savings” in the council’s housing services.

Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors took an “in principle” decision to go ahead with the massive savings programme at a behind-closed-doors meeting on Tuesday 7th October. A similar commitment was also made to pay consultants a substantial fee to deliver this programme. Before any discussion took place, councillors voted to ban members of the press and public from the meeting.

The Executive has even refused to release the report detailing what the cuts it plans to make to other councillors. Only those Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors who are on the Executive were allowed to see the report under conditions of strict security. In a bizarre twist it has also emerged that the leader of the Liberal Democrats was not even allowed to see the report.

Labour calls for investigation into Ipswich Council’s £5m Icelandic bank losses

Labour councillors have today called for an urgent investigation into the circumstances surrounding Ipswich Borough Council’s £5m losses resulting from its loans to collapsed Icelandic banks.

Labour councillors want the investigation to focus on:

* Were the council’s investment procedures followed correctly?

* What impact this loss could have on council services?

* What steps have been taken to minimise future risks?