Only £20 million in reserves, who are you trying to kid Cllr Priest? A little more on Manchester's budget.

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Danny Alexander, number two at the treasury has joined in the criticism of Labour Councils and, in particular, Manchester City Council. Mr Alexander points to Manchester’s levels of reserves as an area of concern:

In an attack on local authorities which he accused of sitting on reserves of more than £2.6 billion, the Liberal Democrat minister claimed that Labour preferred to blame the Government for job losses and cuts to services rather than dip into “rainy day” funds.  He singled out Manchester City Council, which this week announced cuts of £109 million while running a reserve of £108 million.

And Manchester’s response is a classic of spinning nonsense:

Councillor Bernard Priest, executive member for finance at Manchester Council, said, however:

"There has been some suggestion that Manchester City Council has somehow been hoarding a massive war chest of reserves while having to lay off staff.  I want to make it perfectly clear – this is untrue. Our reserves had been set aside to pay for necessary projects, such as new school buildings, job-creating projects in the city centre and the essential refurbishment of Central Library.

“However, our voluntary severance and early retirement package is primarily being funded through raiding these reserves. We are sensible with what we keep aside for a rainy day and it is about £20m. This is exactly what our auditor tells us we should have in the bank."

Before I make a further comment about those reserves – and Mr Alexander understates them – let’s be clear that Cllr Priest is talking absolute nonsense, confuses capital funding with revenue funding and is either being misled by officers or else shouldn’t hold the position.

So Manchester City Council’s reserves (and this doesn’t include the City’s £120million plus shareholding in the Airport of course). These are figures from March 2010 – the most up-to-date comprehensive statement of reserves available publicly:

Capital Receipts Reserve (£14.7m)

Major Repairs Reserve (£1.9m)

General Fund reserve (£23.0m)

Housing Revenue Account Reserve (£49.0m)

Collection Fund Adjustment Account (£2.7m)

Unused Dividends Reserve (£4.0m)

LMS Reserves (£19.2m)

Development Fund Reserve (£4.0m)

On-Street Parking Reserve (£1.8m)

Service Improvement Fund Reserve (£5.1m)

Capital Fund Reserve (£48.1m)

Town Hall Reserve (£18.6m)

Public Lighting PFI Reserve (£6.9m)

Insurance Fund Reserve (£17.3m)

Closed Schools Reserve (£3.6m)

Community Care Reserve (£2.6m)

LAGBI Reserve (£5.7m)

Cleopatra Reserve (£1.1m)

Area Based Grant Reserve (£5.8m)

Planning Delivery Grant Reserve (£5.0)

B of the Bang Replacement Reserve (£0.3m)

Pension Contribution Reserve (£4.6m)

Other Revenue Reserves (£6.8m)

All this adds up to £258.2m – an awful lot of money sitting around in an organisation claiming to be strapped for cash! Without touching the housing and education provisions (although one assumes they could be directed to these areas) or the capital programmes there is £56.7m available. This is some £30m greater than the amount Cllr Priest thinks prudent to retain and could have reduced the negative impact of this year’s settlement on local people and local services.

And one final thought – Manchester and Bradford have similar populations (483,800 and 477,800 respectively). Take a look at the budgets:

Manchester (gross): £1,795m

Bradford (gross):      £1,283m

Manchester (net):  £678.9m

Bradford (net):       £433.5m

So per capita government grant in Manchester is £1403.30 but a measly £907.30 in Bradford!

Growth

Spring is on its way, things are starting to wake up from winter's slumber. From resting out the deep cold. Growth begins - in tiny ways at first with the shoots of snowdrops and daffodils poking up through last years dried leaves, with the little pink buds on the currants and with the pale signs of future flowers now visible on the rhododendron buds.

However, winter isn't over yet - February, the month of snow, lies between us and the full flowering of spring. It may not snow - we might have got our measure with that hard, tough month of snow and frost before the New Year. But I wouldn't count on it - they aren't called snowdrops for nothing!

I've spent this morning in the garden. Just tidying, trimming and checking stuff out - plus shifting another ten barrow loads of leaves to a place where they can rot unmolested. And I was struck by nature's ability to spring anew - fresh from what seemed a dead world. The rhododendron our neighbours hacked back almost to the ground has sprung shoots - plus one or two buds. The big copper beech is lighter, somehow feels happier for having its canopy lifted and the roses - pruned right back before the winter - are showing how they'll grow again bringing with that growth those glorious flowers.

In our mad, rushed, tangled urban lives we find the seasons inconvenient - for many they've been replaced with 'climate control'. With systems regulated to provide an even temperature all year round. So we step safely from unvarying office temperatures, to air conditioned cars and from there to hermetically sealed, temperature controlled homes. Technology has banished the seasons.

So when those seasons fight back - when the winter throws snow at us or the summer delivers a heatwave - we moan and grumble. It is so sad that we - little ants scratting on the surface of a huge planet - think ourselves so important that the audacity of nature takes us aback. Why have the government not done something, we cry! It's getting warmer - it must be man's fault, we are after all so huge, so important.

Nature will win, dear reader. She always does - we watch helpless at floods, droughts and snowdrifts trying to pretend somehow we are at fault. We are not at fault - although it is perhaps the vengeance of Caradhras that we are seeing in these things. Nature is putting us back firmly in our place, laughing in the face of our hubris.

And then blessing us with new growth. Magic.

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