Other Councillors not spending money allocated to them

Investigations by Bury’s Liberal Democrat councillors has revealed that Labour and Conservative councillors have not allocated around half of the money allocated to them for their local communities.

Only two areas – the Liberal Democrat councillors in Holyrood Ward and also the councillors in Tottington – have allocated the total of £4,500 allocated under the Elected Member Discretionary Budgets during that period.

The scheme was set up in December 2017 for councillors to support local projects and initiatives within their ward and wider township at their discretion.

More information was provided in an investigation by the Bury Times, reveal that only £41,801.96 was spent by councillors in their communities out of a possible £76,500.

Liberal Democrat Group Leader Cllr Tim Pickstone said: “We welcomed the decision to provide councillors with small delegated budgets to spend on priorities in their own wards. Liberal Democrat councillors in Holyrood ward have had no difficulty making sure all of that money has gone to the right place supporting a whole variety of community groups and initiatives.”

“There are so many good causes that need our support so I am amazed that only two of the 17 wards in Bury have spent the money that has been allocated to them.”

Councillors in Radcliffe West spent the least money at £312 out of a possible £4,5000 while Besses and St Mary’s wards spent around £700 each.

Here is how Liberal Democrat Councillors spent the budget in Holyrood Ward.

Here is the full spend / underspend for each ward:

Bury East AvailableSpendEMDB allocated per ward
Moorside 2105.002395.004500
Redvales Ward 1300.003200.004500
East Ward 2966.761533.244500
6371.767128.24
Bury West AvailableSpendEMDB allocated per ward
Elton Ward 871.703628.304500
Church Ward 234921514500
3220.705779.30
RTNMavailableSpendEMDB allocated per ward 
Ramsbottom 267218284500 
 North Manor291.204208.804500 
 Tottington045004500 
2963.206036.80 
 
Radcliffe availablespendEMDB allocated per ward 
North1719.482780.524500  
West4188312 4500 
East1226.533273.474500  
 71346365.99 
     
Whitefield & UnsworthavailablespendEMDB allocated per ward 
Pilkington Park28701630 4500 
Besses3772.19727.81 4500 
Unsworth3100 14004500 
 9742.193757.81 
 PrestwichavailablespendEMDB allocated per ward 
St Marys 38116894500 
Sedgley 1454.803045.204500 
Holyrood 0.38 4499.624500 
  5266.188233.82 

4 thoughts on “Other Councillors not spending money allocated to them

  1. Rosemary Williams says:

    Thank you for your import work in alerting residents to this spending shortfall. Very concerning.
    Regards
    RW

  2. Brenda Fairhurst says:

    Queston to be asked, why did conservative councillors in Tottington and Lib Dem’s in Holyrood manage to spend their money. I know that in Tottington many more groups could have benefited if more money had been available.
    Was the fact that Voluntary groups could apply not published/advertised in the other area or were applications turned down.
    I cannot imagine that there are not more groups in other areas that would benefit from a cash imput but maybe they do not want to go through the Pitch process ?
    For the information to be meaningful it needs to have how many groups applied & for how much and whether they were successful or not.
    We also need to knowi is money retained by individual areas or added to total for following year to divide between all areas or perhaps swallowed up by general council fund.
    As treasurer of a registered charity and several voluntary
    I groups I am personally not happy with the Pitch idea in that it depends how many supporters have a Saturday afternoon to spend listening to pitches to be able to vote for their own voluntary group,
    I would be interested to know the answers and perhaps could be published in Bury Times and discussed by the Council.

  3. Barbara Wilson says:

    So what has happened to all the money that they didn’t spend?

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