Expensive Nottingham City Council commissioners won't make much difference anytime soon

Nottingham City Council meets after effectively declaring bankruptcy

The long-expected arrival of commissioners at Nottingham City Council has unleased a torrent of questions, but few answers. We know how much they are going to cost – a lot – but we don’t know how much these three officials may end up claiming on expenses.

We can only hope the Government’s rather bizarre warning for them to avoid “extravagant” lunches will be heeded. One would hope that looking around a struggling city where vulnerable residents are seeing their cherished services snatched away would be enough to make a commissioner think twice before gulping down some taxpayer-funded claret.

We know the powers the commissioners will have – a lot – but we don’t quite know how Nottingham’s elected councillors and council officers will fit into this dynamic. There has been a pledge that the majority of decisions will still be made by those we have elected, but with “oversight” from the commissioners.

Should Nottingham City Council have managed its finances better over the last 10 years? Let us know here

Most importantly, nobody really knows how much the commissioners are going to be able to materially change the situation in which Nottingham City Council finds itself. Issues at the council, both those it has brought on itself and those brought on by the Government, have been years and years in the making.

Despite the brutality of the budget cuts planned from April, they will still leave the council more than £40 million short of the funding it needs. A request has therefore been made for the Government to give Nottingham City Council exceptional financial support and yet, so far, the only action from Government has been to burden the authority with yet more cost.

The answer from Government on the extra financial support is expected soon and yet, even if granted in full, this support will still only mean that the city council is just about surviving. It will still mean widespread cuts and closures and a general inability for the council to be as ambitious in terms of investing in Nottingham as it would like to be.

It is the above reality which commissioners are surely unlikely to change any time soon. Much of their work will involve scrutinising the performance of senior officers, possibly suggesting amendments to budgets and overseeing the redesign of council services.

Important though that work is, especially in the long-term, it seems unrealistic to expect a change to Nottingham’s short-term reality. The only hope from those running the council now is that the stay of the commissioners in Nottingham will be short-lived.

They have been initially appointed for exactly two years, but the Government has not ruled out an extension if that was deemed necessary in future. Only time will tell in terms of the many unanswered questions above, but the lack of any realistic prospect for short-term change is a certainty.

For now then, it seems as if commissioners are more of a representation of a break with past failings. Not just failings of the council, but arguably the failings of the Government’s Improvement and Assurance Board (IAB) that the commissioners will replace.

Although the Government has praised the IAB’s work, it is hard to believe how the officials on that board can walk away from an effectively bankrupt authority making multi-million-pound cuts and think to themselves ‘job well done’ after three years in post. Although commissioners in a way are simply a different trio of Government-backed officials, they are indeed a break from that IAB past.

For the short-term, it therefore seems as if the significance of the appointment of commissioners in Nottingham is more symbolic. At up to £510,000 a year plus expenses, we can only hope this symbolism eventually generates some real change for our city.