Alongside the confusion of what the Isle of Wight council is or isn’t getting in Government Grant after this week’s announcement by Eric Pickles, more uncertainty is appearing.
The latest is a possible large reduction in the monies that the council receives through the Concessionary Fare Scheme.
This originally operated locally, mean those who qualified for free-bus passes could use their tickets in the council/borough or district that they lived in.
Expansion England-wide
Government expanded this, enabling the passes to be used county-wide. Great for those with the tickets, but terrible for holiday destinations like the Isle of Wight.
The impact is that the IW council end up paying Southern Vectis for all of the free-bus journeys, having to reclaim the money from the Government.
Where it all falls down is the repayment grants from the Government don’t match how much the council is having to shell out. The result is the council – and in turn you and I – have less money for services.
This is made all the more frustrating as the original legislation said that neither the bus operator, nor the local authority should be out of pocket by expanding the scheme country-wide. Clearly it isn’t working like that.
Worrying news this week
This is where it’s potentially just got much, much worse.
It appears – and we use the word advisedly, because the council is seeking confirmation on this – that the Government have slashed the money payable to IWC by £1.295m. Leaving only a grant of £800k in place.
That would be the council, already struggling under budget cuts would have £1.295m less money to spend.
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, spoke on this on Monday …
One of the principal problems has been that a number of district authorities put in more money than the Government were actually giving them. At some point, some of that money was passported across to the counties, so that the districts registered a loss.
I have tried to help by adopting a broad-brush approach of putting additional money into districts that are faced with a big loss in their spending power, but this is only a provisional assessment, and I will be listening carefully to what local authorities have to say on this issue.
Hope for a re-balance
So there’s hope that the “provisional assessment” of chopping £1.295m from the IWC grant, might be reversed following, “listening carefully to what local authorities have to say on this issue.”
You never know, there’s always hope that the actual cost, which was around £3m previously, might be paid to the council.
