August 18: KCC's £6.7m school scrappage bill
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AS if it wasn’t bad enough that dozens of school
rebuilding plans are on the scrapheap, Kent County Council could be
staring at the possible loss of a further £6.7million.
That’s the amount it has spent
on fees for scores of consultants, architects, surveyors and the
inevitable lawyers who were contracted to draw up plans for various
schemes under the ill-fated Building Schools for The Future
programme.
We already knew that KCC might
face "significant abortive costs" as a cabinet paper put it in
June. Now we know just what they may be.
At risk
- KCC's £6.7m spend on BSF consultants>>>
Of course, it is entirely
possible that Michael Gove will dip into the Department for
Education’s pockets and reimburse Kent and other education
authorites for the money it now appears they wasted.
But I cannot see it - even
though it was Gove who pulled the rug. KCC leader Paul Carter is
right when he says that the BSF scheme was overly bureaucratic and
that all KCC did was play by the rules laid down by the previous
government.
And it may be that in time, the
government will come up with an alternative capital scheme that
will permit some of Kent’s proposals to go ahead after all. But the
fact remains that many redevelopment schemes will go be going
nowhere for the time being and Kent taxpayers’ will be picking up
the tab.
Meanwhile, the balance sheets of
various consultants will be in the black.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
There'll be mixed views at
County Hall at the abolition of the Audit
Commission.
The Commission and KCC fell out
rather badly over the money the council invested in Iceland and
there was rather a lot of bad blood about when the Commission
labelled KCC as "negligent" over its £50m investments.
After a bout of sabre rattling
and much intensive examination of dictionaries and Thesaurases, the
Commission backed down and withdrew the charge.
Still, the bad memories linger -
even though the Commission in its capacity as assessor of how well
councils are doing consistently rated KCC as among the best in the
country.
I was reminded of the antipathy
between the two while visiting a senior county councillor who
has in his office a framed magazine cutting that reported the
Commission's climdown.
It seems the AC's role will now
be carried out by the National Audit Office but I do wonder if this
cull of quangos may backfire at some point. No doubt there will
come a point when something will emerge that involves a council not
spending public money wisely or appropriately. Who will be the
guardian of the public purse then?
Wednesday, August 18 2010
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