We’ve had a few emails back and forth with the Isle of Wight council’s head of communications today.
In one of the mails, she wrote, “For ref though, the figures you are quoting are not correct.”
Wow. We knew that the County Press and Isle of Wight radio were only quoting one of the grant reductions – headline, “£9m cut in Whitehall funding”, but as we’d taken our data from the government’s own official spreadsheet (yes, it was hard to find, so perhaps that accounts for CP/IWR difference), and found two new grants, leading to more money coming in, we were confused as to how we could have got it wrong.
Confusion
She may be right, but frankly, we’re still in a state of confusion around it, because in the details the council has sent through to the press, when compared to what we reported, the main totals are the same.
What the government call the “Revenue Spending Power” is the same as the council is distributing, although they call it “Total Spending Power.” VB calculated -£6m and the council are showing -£5.995m (close enough for us).
Where it differs comes directly after that – under “Loss In Council Grant Income” – which appears to ignore the extra money the council is getting from the government, ie Council Tax Grant (£1.788m) and Health funding to support Social Care (£2.13m). This leaves them with a figure of -£ 9.913m or -12.1%, by their calculation.
We’ve asked the council for further clarification and hope to clear it up for you (and us!) when we hear.
While we’re waiting, if you can untangle it, please add a comment explaining it all. Thanks in advance.
Council’s version of the numbers
Here’s what the media have been sent with the guidance, “The table below indicates the breakdown of that settlement figure.”
