Local Authorities Lose Millions of Ratepayers Money on Iceland Deposits

Mandark

Lead story on BBC News now.

Stavros_3

The Metropolitan Police have Millions locked down in Iceland. Well that means thousands more traffic tickets will be issued to make up the loss

cogito

As I posted on another thread, would someone kindly explain to me why my local council comes to me every year for more money when they've got millions sitting idle in deposit accounts often for up to three years? Why aren't they using it for local services?

mrposhman

My concern with this is,

why are council tax bills increasing if our councils have got surplus's going into hundreds of millions of £???

Its the job of central government to store cash for the rainy day we are in NOT that of councils.

Councils raise taxes and raise further cash from the government to spend in the CURRENT YEAR and on CURRENT PROJECTS.

If they are taking the p*ss with this and overtaxing the citizens of this country its an outrage and they're now going to be losing our money too.

collingwood21

I've just read that my local council has 11m in deposits with the failed Icelandic banks.

I hope I get my Icesave money back soon - I'll need it to pay for the rises in council tax we'll doubtless get as a result.

Old_Slaphead

I've read that some of this is owed to the Local Gov't Pension Schemes - so guess who'll have to stand for some of that. That's right - you. ie you who've lost your private sector pension scheme (or were'nt offered one in the first place).

Guesthouse

I feel good now.
Our esteemed elected local officials have sought the best possible financial advice and invested in Iceland's banks. In this case, it's reported as the £120 million being used to build new schools.
Nice to know that I wasn't the only one to get it wrong

LesU

To put this in perspective Kent council has an annual budget of £2 billion. They also spread their investments around over 30 different institutions in accordance with financial auditor guidelines. When they invested in Icesave it was rated as a good financial risk by all the international financial watchdogs. They have just got caught up in the financial collapse that is happening all over the world., but they have been financially prudent, so it is not disastrous.
BTW I am not involved with Kent council. This was from the leader of the council on C4 News lunchtime.

mrposhman

I think the point is,

Why are councils investing our cash??

Surely the remit of local versus national government is that local government bids for budgets, they receive income from tax payers (this is how they should be setting council tax rates) and also receive grants and other payments from national government and charities such as the lottery foundation.

It is the role of CENTRAL government to save cash for rainy days NOT that of local government who should be bidding for annual budgets.

Its exactly the same as any group accounts. The local areas make a bid for a budget, they use this money to perform their day to day duties and invest in projects that would benefit the local community, all other monies are returned at the end of the year to the group. Its simple.

They should not even have been in this situation, as local government it should not be in their remit to store savings.

chardir

mrposhman wrote: »

I think the point is,

Why are councils investing our cash??

If you're running a business with a £2 billion budget it would be extremely negligent not to have around £100 million in deposit accounts.