Conservative makes £16M Budget Error

12.00.00am GMT Fri 7th Mar 2008

The Conservative Finance Portfolio Holder on West Berkshire Council, Laszlo Zverko, made a massive error at the Executive meeting of the Council on Thursday evening. In answer to a question from Liberal Democrat Councillor, Alan Macro, Councillor Zverko claimed that a figure of -£8,218,691, given as the cumulative budget to date for the Chief Executive's Dept., must be a misprint for +£8,218,691.

In fact the negative figure was entirely correct. This was confirmed by a Council Finance Officer to the Liberal Democrat Finance Spokesperson, David Rendel, who promptly made the true position clear to the meeting.

"I was staggered", commented Mr Rendel, "that the Conservative Finance spokesperson was so unfamiliar with his own budget that he should make such a massive error. The difference between minus £8M and plus £8M is equivalent to one seventh of the Council's entire annual budget. If the spokesperson cannot do better than this, no wonder the Conservative administration is finding it so hard to get a grip on the budget".