Haringey’s Liberal Democrat councillors have attacked Haringey Council after another attempt to scrutinise the budgetary difficulties facing the council was blocked.

Liberal Democrat councillors had called for the large council overspends to be “called in” and investigated by a special meeting of the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

The blocking of this review follows the earlier moves to block an effective scrutiny of the council’s budget process. Although several other council scrutiny committees have had the benefit of outside experts to give advice, the council refused to allow similar support for the budget scrutiny – resulting in what Lib Dem councillors described as a deliberate fix to try to stop the budget being closely examined.

In blocking the call-in request, Haringey has relied on an obscure part of its rules, arguing that the call-in did not specify a clear alternative course of action. However, the Lib Dem request was for a detailed examination of the reasons for the overspend and for recommendations for action to then follow.

Liberal Democrat finance spokesperson Jonathan Bloch comments:

“It is absurd for the Council to block an examination of its overspending by claiming that we haven’t given a detailed alternative to the overspending. How can people propose an alternative if attempts to find out what has gone wrong in the first place are blocked?”

Liberal Democrat leader Lynne Featherstone comments:

“The council leader and chief executive need to realise that the council isn’t some private gentleman’s club for them to run as they wish.”