Dear Editor,
On 21 December Wembley Matters posted a story based on Labour spin.
Stating that Brent is to get an increase of 9.9% in “core funding”.
Sadly this is not true.
The Labour Government has juggled Grants and other Government funding and came up with a figure for Brent’s ‘core spending power’.
The 9,9% assumes that the Council imposes the full 5% Council Tax rise. So the 9.9% core spending increase includes the extra local people will need to pay as part of the latest Council Tax rise and at a briefing with Finance Officers we were told that the Council Tax rise represent about a 3rd of this 9.9%. So only 6.6% - and NO Labour did not simply invert the numbers. The Labour Deputy Leader was simply not telling the truth.
The situation is even worse than this. 3 months ago we were told the overspend this year stands at £9 million. Now the Cabinet is being told on Monday the most up to date overspend is £12.5 million. An increase of £3.5 million!
And the reason for the £3.5 million is mostly in social care - care packages more expensive because providers are passing on the higher costs of energy and staffing. And why is cost employees going up? - because Labour hiked up employers National Insurance. So Local Government is being hit the same way as the hospitality sector and any other service reliant on people to provide it.
Because these extra costs are recurring year on year the so called 9.9% (actually only 6.6%) has already been wiped out.
So the Brent Labour claims that things would get better under a Labour Government are pure fiction.
The Lead Member for Finance is clearly completely out of her depth. Tried to mislead us on the true figures, has no control of the Brent Budget and should resign or be sacked.
All the best,
Paul Lorber (Leader of Brent Council Liberal Democrat Group)
7 comments:
Woah 12 mil overspend! Has anyone seen any glimpse of what the SCIL money that was unlocked for Public Realm has achieved as so far I can’t see any of the “investing in Brent” improvements. One thing that needs to be improved at this council is transparency.
Paul is right to point out that the claim put out about the 9.9% in core funding from the Government is untrue (or at least the misleading spin that successive Chancellors of the Exchequer have used for years, when they include the maximum amount that local government can add to Council Tax as part of what they say is Central Government funding).
But this is not an isolated example. I believe that many of the news releases that come out from "Brent Communications" are misleading, if not actual lies.
Another recent example is this statement by the Council Leader, in a news release last month about "unblocking" the demolition of Bridge Park: “We can now get on with building a new leisure centre fit for the next generation and delivering hundreds of genuinely affordable homes.”
I attended the big consultation exhibition about the Bridge Park project in November 2024. We will have to wait and see what the planning application says, but most of the homes back then were intended by the developer to be private ones, and the scheme on show certainly did not offer 'hundreds of genuinely affordable homes'.
Unfortunately, you can't rely on what official Brent Council publications say as being the truth, yet they are often "copied and pasted" into local news reports, because that is cheaper than employing enough proper journalists. As a result, possibly misleading stories coming out of the Civic Centre can influence residents (and potential voters) as if they were the truth.
Local Council communications are supposed to be politically neutral, and only reporting factual matters. For years, that has not really been the case in Brent, as they only seem to report positive stories, almost always picturing and quoting a Cabinet member as part of the news release.
Why is that the case? I suspect it is probably because Brent's top communications officer seems to be too compliant with the wishes of the Cabinet Lead Member for Communications. Although that role is not widely publicised, the holder of that Cabinet portfolio is Cllr. Muhammed Butt.
These are my personal views. I believe they are truthful, but you should make up your own mind, based on your own knowledge and experiences.
The Labour Party have made a complete hash of everything the try to do, both nationally and locally. Is it no wonder the majority of Labour voters are deserting the sinking Labour ship in large numbers, while Labour keep turning and turning and turning, while ruining the economy, both nationally and locally. The problem for voter is, who the ..... ..... should they turn too instead of the inept and dead from the neck up Labour Party, then there are the pathetic Tories, the dangerous and mad Reform Party, how about the unforgiven Libdems, or perhaps the new kid on the block, that has absolutely no track record, yes, the Greens. Personally, I'm going Green in Brent 2026 along with thousands of others. What are you going to do?
2026. We have to right the wrongs and reinstate Paul as Leader of Brent Council.
9.9% - 5% =4.9%?
That is the wrong fraction and wrong calculation. The claimed 9.9% is defined as Brent's spending power and the 5% is the proposed Council Tax rise as demanded by the Labour Government. The percentages relate to different figures and the answer is not simply 9.9 - 5! The forced 5% equals to around 3.3% of spending power so 9.9 - 3.3 = 6.6% "spending power". Hence my point that the Labour Deputy Leader's (and their so called Finance Lead) claim about 9.9% was a misleading lie.
Hi. When I publish an unedited Press Release from any organisation, including Brent Council, I introduce it with (for example) From Brent Council - as here: https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2025/12/brent-to-get-99-increase-in-core.html Then the reader knows where it came from rather than it being an independent story. Local newspapers don't normally do this.
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