A row has broken out between the Alliance group and the Isle of Wight Conservatives over County Hall’s financial reserves.
Cabinet member Jonathan Bacon today blasted a Conservative budget statement this week, denouncing it as a “gross misrepresentation”, “slapdash” and “troubling if not farcical”, while council leader Phil Jordan expressed concern over the Conservatives’ grasp of “basic publicly available information”.
On Tuesday, the Tories accused the ruling “Independent and Green Party alliance” of “frittering away substantial reserves” in response to recently announced 2025/26 budget plans.
A spokesperson from the opposition group said:
“When the Conservative administration lost control of the council in May 2021, the total council Financial Reserves stood at over £117 million.
“Over the life of the current administration, they have used virtually all the available reserves and wiped out the Covid Reserves put in place by the previous Conservative administration, spent all the Transformational Reserve Fund, and reduced the General Reserves to within £1.5 million of the minimum level the council is required to maintain.”
The statement said the current cabinet has run with a structural deficit – spending more than its income – and are projecting the structural deficit will continue and increase over the next few years.
It continued:
“The current leader of the council seems to believe that we will be rescued by a financial bonus from devolution and that it offers a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; many of us think the pot of gold story is a myth!”
Cllr Bacon, representative for Brading and St Helens, hit back:
“We thought the original Conservative statement on the budget proposals was simply slapdash as many assumed they had put a decimal point in the wrong place.
“Then it seemed, as they stuck to their figure for reserves, that it was actually wilfully misrepresenting figures, by comparing apples to oranges, to give a false picture of council finances as part of the political bluster without factual basis that made up much of the statement.
“It turns out their statement is in fact both slapdash and wilfully misleading as, using their basis of calculation, and comparing like with like, it is seen that the Alliance has actually significantly improved the overall level of council reserves.
“The gross misrepresentation of the situation by the Conservative group is troubling if not farcical and it can only be hoped that whoever is doing their figures is kept away from any position of financial responsibility for as long as possible.”
Council leader Phil Jordan said the Alliance administration had increased the council’s reserves from £117 million in 2021 to £124 million today.
He added:
“We have safeguarded jobs, invested in the Island, not increased charges where we could, and we continue to improve the outcomes for Island residents under very difficult circumstances.
“Ironically, the difficult circumstances that have been rained down on our Island by continuous cuts to our funding from a Conservative government since 2010.”
In response to criticism of Tuesday’s statement, a Conservative spokesperson said:
“At the end of the 20/21 period, the total reserves were £117 million. We have not been given the full breakdown of the total reserves; however, we do know that the Covid and Transformational Reserves will now be emptied, and the General Reserves are perilously close to the £8 million minimum figure.”
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