SOMERSET County Council has achieved notoriety in the national press and TV coverage for being close to financial meltdown. 

An officer report, which gives objective facts in measured language, states “Our budget remains unstable” and that regular overspends and lack of reserves were “a considerable risk to the council”.

The Conservative MP for Taunton Deane and her colleagues in Somerset have totally failed to make their own Tory Government fix what the Tory leader of SCC describes as a “broken system of council funding”.

Tory financial mismanagement of SCC has contributed to the mess.


READ MORE: Shock resignations amid financial problems at Somerset County Council


Otherwise, why would Somerset be the only county council likely to follow Northamptonshire into total collapse?

When seizing control, the Tories got rid of hundreds of staff with huge redundancy costs, then found services collapsing, so spent well over £16 million per year on agency staff, causing severe disruption and costing millions more than the money “saved”. 

There have been constant changes in senior management, with highly paid “consultants” brought in to manage failure. 

The Tories let the vital Children’s Services collapse from the OFSTED rating of “Outstanding” achieved by the Liberal Democrats to the lowest rating of “Inadequate”. 

They then employed a “Consultant”, paid more than the Prime Minister, with no improvement.

One of the main criticisms of SCC in this Review is the year-on-year overspends on Children’s Services, which are spiralling out of control, with Tory councillors in leadership roles resigning their roles because they don’t want to carry the can when financial meltdown happens.

CLLR SIMON COLES
Member for Taunton East
Somerset County Council