Taking council cash

handouts for granted

THE vagaries of local government finance are enough to

confuse the most knowledgeable among us - including those who represent or work for the council.

It certainly seems strange that South Lakeland District Council can be screaming poverty one month, and then scattering its favours to all and sundry a few months later.

There are a number of conflicting factors at play.

The cutbacks in services came about from a fundamental review of the council's spending commitments.

Among the services hit have been concessionary travel vouchers and public conveniences.

Both have caused considerable disquiet in the communities.

At the same time a separate account for large-scale capital projects seems to be in such a healthy state that the

council has invited applications.

The council expects to have a £2 million surplus in this fund by March 2004.

The reason for this, apparently, is that the council sold more council houses than it expected in the last financial year, probably because of low interest rates.

Also, the

Government gave the council permission to spend more of its capital fund.

The position is confused by this interference of a central

government that forever bombards local councils with memoranda, circulars and new laws which all impact on the choices the authority makes on how to spend money raised from taxpayers.

Nowhere is this confusion better illustrated than in Grange-over-Sands.

The parish council is one of those up in arms over the closure of public toilets.

In addition, householders in the town cannot understand why the district council cannot provide pumping equipment to get rid of excess water during floods.

And yet a new swimming pool, which has been made possible by the magnificent fund-raising efforts of the people of Cartmel peninsula, and whose bid for £30,000 a year for six years was turned down in January, now looks set to receive a one-off grant of £120,000 after all.

Presumably, pumping floodwaters into the new pool was not an option.

No doubt other communities in the district can point to equally contradictory examples.

Although capital projects are the flavour of the year with Government, there are dangers to those who receive one-off grants, as has been illustrated by the Lottery.

What do the beneficiaries do for finances when the grant runs out?

In the final analysis, voters, who go to the polls next month, will have to decide whether those who represent us have made sensible choices, based on reasonable priorities.

If they have, then they may be voted back into power.

If they haven't, the opposite may happen.

At least South Lakeland District Council has a split political make-up, which tends to lead to decisions driven by debate, rather than by political dogma; although, like all public bodies, it has to be alert to the disproportionate influence of vested interests.