Are we happy to spend?

THE spending of large amounts of council money should be seen as good news.

That was the message given to Rother members on Monday by the authority's director of resources, when councillors grilled him over its capital programme.

Cabinet had been asked to recommend to council changes to the capital programme - including 35,000 for a new games area at Rye and 100,000 additional funding for the Bexhill Museum project.

But councillors found themselves more concerned with a statement made within the report: "The capital programme remains fully funded. However the council's capital resources will be exhausted in the next five to six years based on current spending commitments and corporate plan projects."

The report was questioned by a worried Cllr Robin Patten.

He said: "I think the situation that is really quite concerning, is that our capital resources will be exhausted in five to six years ...

"I just do think that we, as a council, need to be extremely careful, extremely vigilant and very much more critical than perhaps we are sometimes in ensuring we get value for money.

"There will be really hard decisions taken that will upset people, residents and organisations within the district."

Non-cabinet member Cllr David Vereker said: "We really can't go on spending the money when we haven't got it.

"We have got this council tax problem, but we seem to be happy to go on spending like billy-o when a lot of these problems could be eased if we don't."

Director of resources Malcolm Johnston, said he recognised the difficult financial climate, but had no concerns with Rother's spending.

He reminded members the large capital spend was to fund major projects from the corporate plan that had been agreed upon by council.

He added though, the situation was constantly monitored and members could decide upon adjustments to the financial strategy.

He said: "There has been a lot in the press as to why councils are sitting on vast amounts of money that they may lose in the banks and why not spend it for the good of its residents.

"What this report does is say that we are spending.

"That is good news for members. I don't agree it is bad news - it means our projects are being implemented.

"It is important to remember we are doing this because this is money we have built up - because we could not come up with millions in any given year, we have to save up and then spend it.

"I would be more worried if we had all these savings and didn't know what to do with them."

He added officers, where appropriate, were always looking to secure grants to ease the financial burden on major projects.

Mr Johnston also said the value of council assets had not been taken into consideration in the report, and councillors may have to take a view in future on how best to use them.