Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey Council: Facing the financial challenges
Hi all
Please see a link to our new video outlining the reality of the financial challenges faced by Haringey Council, our commitment to transparency and working with residents to find solutions and to take the fight to national government as we call for fairer funding for local services.
You can watch the video here.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Brian Mahoney on
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Thanks Johann. That sounds promising. Good luck and thanks to you and Ms Kuper for engaging with people on this forum.
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Permalink Reply by Nigel on
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Cllrs Beckford and Kuper asked for input. All IMHO:
Much of what was said in the video was clear and some promises looked positive. I would like to echo and add to what Brian Mahoney has posted.
The video pointed out the fast-rising amount and cost of debt. Borrowing is worse than poison at these levels, even if the lender might be the Government. Debt is also killing the ability of central Govt to spend where it needs to do so, including in the subvention of local authorities like Haringey. It would be irresponsible of the Council to increase debt now in the hope of greater Govt subvention or debt relief some time in the future.
New councillors now have an opportunity to change the face and reputation of Haringey Council by substantive and realistic action. They should each accept and abide by their core duty to act prudently and responsibly with the public money entrusted to them, as acknowledged in the video.
Asking for help from the officers in devising plans for review is a step forward but it almost certainly introduces delay to remedial action and can distract from the tools they already have. A responsible exercise of that duty requires councillors to embark on the important and painstaking (if tedious) task of questioning each line of expenditure regardless of previous policies under which the money was and is intended to be spent, so they understand where the money goes and how much. For that they may need to be bold with the Council's own officers and establishment, whose own priorities may not exactly coincide with that duty.
It would be a good start for councillors with responsibility for particular policy areas to have the senior official responsible for execution in that area to embark on that task with them.
There is little point in looking backwards, bleating about how or why the Council is in such dire financial straits or "fighting" central Government, itself in financial difficulties, for more money. To do so is to waste valuable time and money.
Of course, making the Borough leaner, cleaner and more resident- and business-friendly would attract ratepayers and in turn increase that third of the Council's income. The forthcoming revision of valuations for rating should also put some more money in the Council's coffers.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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A revamped Civic Centre would be a nice-to-have and indirectly, it would benefit residents. All of course, if money permits.
In 2021 the cost estimate was £24 million and later climbed to £54 million.
And then it went up again.
Three years ago the Tottenham & Wood Green Independent reported:
Haringey Council approves £65m civic centre revamp
However, the council had already burnt a big chunk from their Capital Budget through in a serious of undocumented, irregular or corrupt deals, or the capital needed was borrowed, or a combination.
The scheme is likely to have been pushed forward by council employees ("policy compliant"), assisted by feeble governance.
Borough households have to live within their means, but previous (imprudent) Administrations showed a lack of restraint with public money. If not recklessness and irresponsibility.
IMO, if accurate records are kept, then residents deserve to be told about its current financial status.
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Permalink Reply by Cllr Jo Kuper on
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Thanks, Nigel. Cllr Johann Beckford is away for the next couple of weeks, but am sure will be happy to respond more when he's back. What I will say is we are absolutely committed to understanding every line of the budget, and bringing down the EFS is a priority. At the same time, we have to be sure that we don't see further disproportionate impact on communities who are already struggling with the impacts of 15-years of austerity.
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Sorry! The Exceptional Financial Support loans that the council has had to take out to balance the books which is a legal requirement. Despite being needed to ensure the council can provide statutory services, these have an interest rate of 7%...
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Cllr Kuper,
Thank you for explaining EFS as being "exceptional" loans.
If that loan money is applied to the Council's overall spend, then you would have to agree that it is not obviously correct to tell us it is "... needed to ensure the council can provide statutory services" .
Even if the proceeds of the loan were ring-fenced to statutory services in Haringey's accounts [are they?], finding that principal 7m elsewhere would mean that the Council wouldn't have had to incur the debt to provide those services.
Who exactly decided to borrow and at that rate, rather than save or find the money from other expenditure lines? Why?
And to fulfil Cllr Beckford's promises of fiscal responsibility and transparency, will you and colleagues commit to repay or at least not increase that debt in this term?
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Hi Nigel, thanks again for the input. Johann may be able to provide more context than I can, but all decisions to borrow under the EFS were made by the previous administration. However, what I do know is that council's have a legal obligation to balance the books, and when they can't this is where EFS comes in.
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Cllr Kuper,
Thank you for your response.
May I press the point: will you and colleagues first confirm that the EFS money is only spent on the statutory services [care, for example] and that the new, responsible and transparent Council will repay or at last not increase the EFS sought this term?
By the way, it is reported that by dint of tight control of spending, Hammersmith and Fulham Council has met its care expenditure entirely out of revenue.
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Hi Nigel
Apologies, I missed this original point. I was perhaps clumsy in my wording, I didn't mean to say that the EFS was needed solely for statutory services, but rather that despite the huge pressure on councils to provide statutory services, which are the majority of any council's budget, the means with which to meet these requirements are pushing councils into debt. I don't know the exact breakdown of EFS wrt to provision of these services as a like for like, but will defer to Johann when he is back from leave. Thanks, Jo
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Cllr Kuper,
Thank you for your reply above and for your reply to Clive Carter below, both of today.
The point is simple: Statutory obligations, for services such as social care and the requirement to balance the books, come first. The Council could have balanced the books without borrowing on EFS terms and met its statutory obligations, simply by spending 7m less overall.
It is not right, therefore, to say that the Council needed to borrow 7m on EFS terms to meet its statutory obligations. Our elected councillors decided in March 2026 to spend 7m more on other things, 7m the Council didn't have, and to borrow it on EFS terms.
That 7m - a very small percentage of overall spending - should not have been so spent. That 7m is now debt, the expensive interest is money that isn't available for services going forward and who knows when it will be repaid.
Going forward, the equation still holds: if available revenue remains the same but statutory obligations cost more, because the Council has to balance the books it must spend less on other things - absent a fairy pot of gold, of course. "Borrow only if you can repay," as my bank keeps telling me.
It must really be a daunting task to make sense of a budget with so many rules and lines of income and covering expenditure of over 970 million. Are you being sufficiently helped in this task by the Council's Directors and their staff?
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we are absolutely committed to understanding every
line of the budget, and bringing down the EFS is a priority————
Jo, good to see this!
I was shocked to read in your other post, that Exceptional Financial Support costs us 7%.
Currently, many Haringey residents would personally be able borrow money at 100 Basis Points less than that.
Does this not suggest that the lender to our Council has included a significant risk-premium?
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In previous litigation that was Decided in January last year, the council is recorded as having written to me at Para 40:
The financial details of the Council are sensitive by definition, …
The Tribunal Judge appeared to take a dim view of this claim, noting at Para 58 that it was "not in any event a FOIA exemption".
What is sensitive beyond doubt, was political and career embarrassment.
The council forget they spend public money, but not always in the public interest. The least the staff can do is to account for it, fully, honestly and accurately.
The local council has long been obsessed with secrecy, especially over its finances. Sometimes, excuses are offered up in order to conceal mistakes, incompetence or worse. Redaction in FoI answers was sometimes reflexive. In FoI requests, council employees decide the Public Interest Test; alternatively, marking their own homework.
The council's ill-considered claim betrayed an outlook that could be ascribed to a family business, where the managers have forgotten who their customers are, and the only shareholders are the bosses and staff.
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