Lib Dem fury as Cardiff Council misled by Labour Assembly Government

12.00.00am GMT Mon 13th Nov 2006

Liberal Democrats in Cardiff have reacted with fury on discovering Cardiff Council has been misled by the Labour Assembly Government into believing it will receive a higher percentage increase in funding next year than will actually be the case.

Owing to a glaring, and perhaps deliberate, mistake in the WAG publication of the provisional local government settlement for 2007-08, an increase in funding described as 4.9% making it the third biggest increase for a local authority in Wales has on further examination actually turned out to be a below average increase of 4.0% and only ranked 12th out of 22 compared to other Welsh local authorities.

The "mistake" has occurred because the comparative figures published along with the provisional settlement for 2007-08 of how much each local authority was given in 2006-07 do not accurately reflect what each local authority actually received.They do not include adjustments which were made before the amounts were allocated to take account of up to date population figures for each local authority area. Compared to the figure recently published by WAG, Cardiff's figure for 2006-07 was approximately ?2.8 million higher once the population estimates had been taken into account and this is the figure that should have been used as a comparison to that now being advocated for the next financial year.

Cardiff Council's Liberal Democrat leader Rodney Berman said: "This is outrageous. The Labour Assembly Government has been claiming that Cardiff is set to receive one of the highest increases in funds compared to other parts of Wales next year, but the reality is that yet again we're being given a below average rise. And we all know this means that either the annual council tax rise will need to be greater or there will have to be cuts made to existing services.

"At best this could be seen as a case of gross incompetence, but I am more inclined to believe it's an attempt by the Labour Local Government Minister Sue Essex to cover up the fact that yet again she is short-changing her Cardiff constituents by providing them with a below average increase in funds for the coming year. Year after year, Cardiff has suffered from below-average settlements from the Labour Assembly Government and now it seems the coming year will be no different."

Liberal Democrat Assembly Member for Cardiff Central, Jenny Randerson, added: "?2.8 million of the money Sue Essex is claiming is an increase or Cardiff in the coming financial year is actually money that was already included in the rise the council received in the current financial year. This seems to be a classic case of double-counting to make the rise for the coming year look much better than it is - conveniently just as we are heading towards the next Assembly election.

"The Labour Party has recently had the cheek to suggest that Cardiff Council's Liberal Democrat administration couldn't handle its finances - an allegation I would refute. But now we know that either we have a Labour Finance Minister who can't get her sums right or, more worryingly, that she is deliberately trying to cover up just how badly she is treating Cardiff yet again."