Isle of Wight West Labour MP, Richard Quigley, has expressed his frustration at the difficulty of Government civil servants to understand that delivering services on the Isle of Wight is more expensive than it is for Mainland local authorities.
In response to the Minster’s boilerplate letter earlier this week to IW Council Leader Phil Jordan, Mr Quigley told OnTheWight,
“I have been working with Councillor Jordan and Council Chief Executive Wendy Perera to explain to the civil service, why living on the Isle of Wight is more expensive for us all, but especially for the council.
“It frustratingly seems it’s difficult for civil servants to understand our issue. And my language has been forthright and Anglo Saxon at times as the reduction in funding under the previous government has pushed the council to the brink.
“Our core spending power does increase; however, this includes council tax increases and business rates. But because we have seen a below average rise in our population, we lose out on that element of funding.”
Gov transformation team will see the issue for themselves
Mr Quigley went on to say,
“The only way to get the Department for Housing , Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to listen is to follow their process of applying for emergency funding.
“They then send in a team to look at how we can ‘transform’ the council to operate with the funding settlement offered.
“If they can find ways that we haven’t, then great, but as we largely expect they won’t, then the very real problem of being an Island will become the focus and effort for our fair funding.
“I will continue to fight for a better settlement as I have been doing on behalf of islanders.”
