Council Budget error!!!
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Can someone please explain why in the Council Difficult Decisions document it states that they have a budget of £225 million made up from £169m from Welsh Government and £56 million Council Tax. I cannot then understand why their nice colored pie chart at the beginning of the document shows that all the segments actually add up to £307.13 million —
£82.13 million difference..
Cllr Pritchard, please explain in plain simple terms why on the same page of the document you are looking at different sets of figures?
Are there any number crunchers reading this thread that could explain or are we all subject now to flawed data…
Perhaps Wrexham.com can ask for an explanation
Good spot :) Your maths is right on the public consultation doc – totals £307m!
I had a look back to previous budgets, and the current stuff to see where the problem came in and it appears there is a difference between the draft and the public doc this year with a decimal point being worth 81 million quid.
http://moderngov.wrexham.gov.uk/documents/s9716/Appendix%203.pdf is the draft doc that was approved at Exec Board if I remember right.
The public doc has the same graph but has the £9.09m down as £90.9m
Not 100% sure… but that is my best guess so far!
Looks like the budget is mot only balanced but cash to spare. What confidence can we have in this Council
As pointed out the numbers don’t add up, which are right? How can the public be certain that the actual budget produced is accurate? Time for Council to adopt a more open approach and for the detailed budget of each department to be made available online for , Councillors and public to scrutinise. Who knows what savings could be identified. There is no financial confidentiality , as it is the ratepayers who foot the bill in the end. The Council might find such openness enlightening.
In the spirit of openness when I submit my invoice to the Council for 10% of the savings I have identified in the budget I will keep 50% and share the other between Wrexham.com for confirming the figures and charities who are always having money taken from them by the Council.
My 10% will, of course, be fully in line with the astronomical fees that PWC charged the Council for finding cuts that even lay people like me could identify.
I do not accept that there is only an error on one of the lines — looking at the chart overall there are some other anomalies that may appear if Rob – Wrexham.com presses hard enough to find the actuals against the heading that are on the pie chart.
Another interesting one is Fire Levy — is this an insurance policy against all Council Buildings or what else is it covering??
[quote quote=139744]As pointed out the numbers don’t add up, which are right? How can the public be certain that the actual budget produced is accurate? Time for Council to adopt a more open approach and for the detailed budget of each department to be made available online for , Councillors and public to scrutinise. Who knows what savings could be identified. There is no financial confidentiality , as it is the ratepayers who foot the bill in the end. The Council might find such openness enlightening.[/quote]
How dare you suggest such an open approach. Scrutiny proposals are overthrown by Exec Board members, only a few people rule Wrexham.
Had something from Wrexham Council on this thread…
“We can confirm that the explanation given by Wrexham.com in response to the initial forum post is correct – this is a typo with the decimal point in the key, and the figure stated should read £9.09m rather than £90.9m. The pie chart segments are correct. This was an error at the design level and is being corrected in the online consultation document.
“With regards to queries over the Fire Levy, that is our contribution to North Wales Fire and Rescue Service.”
Hope that helps!
Rob glad to see that you have had clarification on this particular issue. The combined budget lines for Corporate do not seem proportionate to the whole budget – the amount going into central services shows a disproportionate spend compared with frontline services.
As the £6,57m for Fure is the same as last year — has the Council not taken into account any inflation on this figure or is it that Fire has been able to manage their funds without needing an increase.
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