Brent Council Budget Consultation

I received an update on Brent's Budget Consultation shortly before Christmas.  It had few surprises, with the attitudes being very similar to the ones I have come across in all the previous years that I have debated the subject with people.

Unsurprisingly, very few people understood how Council finances worked.  Just like plumbing, you only really worry how it works once something goes wrong.  People didn't understand that the limits on Council spending and were surprised by the likely pressures on future spending.  There was what I always consider to be an unrealistic sense that sufficient savings could be found through cutting "waste".

Interestingly, most people believed that Council Tax had been increased since 2010, despite all the publicity about it being frozen.  More predictably, people found it very hard to identify where Council spending could be cut.