Tory Derby City Council Leader, Cllr Poulter, today lied in the Cabinet Meeting to cover up the real reason for the forecasted depletion of £30m of budget risk reserves over the last 4 years of the Tory administration.

In response to a question from Labour leader Cllr Shanker, Poulter stated that “it was wasted on the A52”

On 13 Nov 2019 Poulter’s Cabinet approved £24.7m of borrowing to cover the losses

None came from reserves.

He refused to allow this to be clarified by the Council’s Chief Legal Officer

The reserves have been depleted due to the year on year budget overspends and appropriations necessary to make “legally balanced budgets”.

Comment

Poulter should be censured for making a statement which he knew not to be true in order to avoid proper scrutiny of his administration’s overall financial performance including the forecast £14.6m overspend for this financial year.

Note:

Cllr Roulstone – Poulter’s daughter and ex-Cabinet member for Finance made the same error 1 year ago, in public

Cllr Roulstone (Finance) forgets borrowing £25m!

Again, he would not allow the Chief Exec, or the Chief Finance Officer to clarify this point in the meeting,