I’m sure you are already on with campaigning, residents surveying and getting ready for the European elections, followed by the Scottish Referendum! It’s going to be a busy few months…
But in this column, I wanted to talk about a couple of things that seem to have flown under the radar of the media but that I’m sure you’ve picked up.
In 2008 in the aftermath of the Icelandic banking crash, many councils saw the funds they stored with them frozen (no pun intended, honest!). For the last six years councils of all stripes and shades have fought alongside the LGA to recover this money for local residents. It was fantastic to hear that around £1bn of cash tied up in failed Icelandic banks has now been recovered by local authorities. Just under £1.05bn had been deposited by councils in four Icelandic banks at the time of their collapse in 2008.
Following the sale of most councils’ remaining claims against the former banks through a competitive auction, it is now thought these authorities will have recovered more than 90p for every £1 invested in Landsbanki (LBI), Glitnir, Heritable and Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander. The tenacious efforts of local government working together to get this money back have paid off.
Secondly, I’m sure you saw that the Conservatives pushed incredibly hard to bring down the cap at which a referendum is triggered for a council tax rise. I’m very proud that virtually all of the Liberal Democrat run authorities have frozen council tax. But the plan to force an expensive referendum on councils that wanted to raise their council tax by 1.5% was anti-democratic and showed Eric Pickles as the man he is – all talk, all press release and no action. We are the party of localism. Alongside Danny and Nick I’m proud to have played a part in thwarting him on this one!
And talking about Eric Pickles, the LGA Lib Dem group have created an award in his name! It’s for the most rubbish council of the year so that you can name and shame those Labour and Tory councils that get your goat…and I’m sure we’ll have LOTS of cracking nominations!
The LGA Liberal Democrat Office will be accepting nominations from Lib Dem groups in control or in opposition from now until midday on Monday 3 March. The awards ceremony will take place on Friday 7 March at Spring Conference in York. So please do nominate your group and councillors who have gone above and beyond…. as well as nominating your opponents who have underwhelmed to an Olympic standard! More details can be found here: https://www.aldc.org/news/council-group-of-the-year-awards-nominations-open/
Best wishes and I hope to see you in York!
Tim