By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
Finance chiefs at Gloucester City Council have been praised for closing the huge financial gap they were facing.
The council was facing a budget shorfall of £1.5m due to challenges including temporary housing costs for the homeless and a spike in energy bills affecting leisure facilities and the crematorium.
Civic chiefs worked to bring the costs down by buying property for temporary accommodation, bringing in Freedom Leisure to run GL1, reopening Longsmith Street car park.
And they have secured a grant from Sports England to install solar panels and energy efficient pumps which will hopefully reduce the costs of this service in the long term.
Overview and scruiny committee chairman Andrew Gravells (C, Abbeydale) told last night’s meeting (July 1): “The forecast at the end of quarter one in the year we are looking at was for quite a large deficit of £1.5m.
“By the end of the financial year that’s been reduced to £288,000. I’m making a point about the diligence and professionalism of the team sat either side of you.
“That is not bad, is it? We should give the advice you give and the advice the previous administration got, we should take note of that it was good advice.
“Some movement from £1.5m to just under £300,000. We are not out of the woods yet but it’s worth marking.
“Given where we began 12 months earlier, it’s pretty good and I’m sure a lot of authorities would welcome that percentage change during the year.”
Officers said it was a whole council achievement. “It wasn’t just a finance thing,” finance and resources head Greg Maw said.
“It was impressive to see the whole council come together when we saw we had that challenge and everyone worked together in order to make sure we had a much better position than when we started.”
Councillor Stephanie Chambers (C, Abbeydale), who was previously the cabinet member for planning and housing, said the team led by Mr Maw made some really good decisions and changes.
She said they managed to turn around a dire situation for the council and improve people’s lives in the process.
“That was a significant challenge within the temporary housing,” she said.
“However what came out from that was not only to paddle out of that situation but the services improved.
“We’ve got some homes for families without shared facilities and that is fantastic.”