It’s a messy old business trying to get to the bottom of the disastrous state of affairs at Aberdeen City Council, as mudslinging politicians try with all their might to make the dirt stick on anyone but themselves.
Recent months have seen the council lurch from one crisis to another as the scale of the financial problems facing the city has emerged in fits and starts.
Cuts totaling £27million are being made in spending on services, from sports facilities to social employment organisations for disabled people, and the public are taking to the streets in unprecedented numbers to oppose the closure of much-loved attractions such as the Bon Accord Baths and the Doonies Farm rare breeds centre.
Meanwhile, the council’s management is coming under intense scrutiny from local government watchdogs and even the police.
But why did no one see this coming? And who should shoulder the blame?
The council’s budget problems seem to have begun some time between 2000 and 2007. Exactly when the rot set in depends on who you listen to.
Labour, who ran the administration from 1999 to 2003, say they left a surplus of £23.5million in the council’s coffers when they lost power. Labour group leader Len Ironside has accused its successors, the Liberal Democrats, of “making a dog’s breakfast” of running the city.
The Lib Dems became involved from 2003 to 2007 and are in coalition again in the current administration. Group leader and council leader Kate Dean yesterday dated the current malaise to local government reorganisation in 1996 when Aberdeen fared poorly in the carve-up of former regional council funds.
The problems were exacerbated, she claims, by the Labour administration, which followed a policy of protecting education and social work budgets from cuts at the expense of other budgets.
“We now have the situation where education and social work make up such a large share of the budget that if we excuse them from cuts – as the Labour Party did for eight years – it is going to have a disproportionate effect on other budgets.
“Someone was always going to have to make difficult decisions to try to level the playing field.”
The Tories shared power with the Lib Dems until 2007. Group leader Alan Milne agreed the problems could be traced back to around 2000-2001, and Labour’s overspending on social work and education.
He said: “The council at that time was fairly generous and carried on spending a lot of money on those services for years, but that couldn’t go on forever, and someone else has had to bite the bullet.”
Meanwhile, the SNP joined the ruling administration at last year’s election and are now taking the flak for years of neglect and mismanagement.
Finance Secretary John Swinney waded into the row earlier this month when he blamed Labour and the Liberal Democrats for racking up £50million in debts at the council in just five years, and said the Scottish Government and the SNP could not be held responsible for the financial crisis now gripping the city.
Behind all the blame and bluster are the unelected officials who must also shoulder some of the blame for allowing the council’s finances to go into freefall.
They already face the unedifying prospect of being questioned under oath at a public hearing by the Accounts Commission of Scotland next month on the reasons for the city’s “precarious” financial state.
Officials were also heavily criticised in a damning Audit Scotland report, revealed exclusively in the Press and Journal yesterday, which suggested prize assets, including the Seafield Club and College Street car park, were sold for more than £5million less than the market value.
The claims are now the focus of a police investigation.
Aberdeen City Council chief executive Douglas Paterson yesterday accepted that the Audit Scotland report was the worst the council had ever had and said he was “shocked, embarrassed and unhappy” by its findings. But he vowed to tough out the current crisis, saying it was his responsibility as the local authority’s highest-ranking official to deal with the issues.
For council tax payers and voters the stench of incompetence and mismanagement hangs heavy over Aberdeen. It will take some time and perhaps more investigations by independent watchdogs and police to clear the air.
Meanwhile services are being eroded and swingeing cuts are threatening the future of organisations across the city.
Casualties include the charity for homeless people, the Cyrenians, which is facing a £900,000 cut in its budget.
The Bon Accord Baths has closed, and the Linx Ice Arena has been mothballed for 18 months.
Two bowling greens at Queen’s Links and the Kincorth Outdoor Centre have been axed, saving the council £60,000 in running costs.
Even the city’s proud record in the Britain in Bloom contest could be under threat with the news that grass cutting is being halted in some areas.
Doonies Farm rare breeds centre had been due to close on April 1 but a campaign group set up to save the popular children’s attraction has been given 60 days to come up with a business plan and its own funding.
Four members of the Choices day centre for disabled people are taking legal action against the council, claiming the threatened closure breaches its own disability regulations.
The Aye Can recycling centre, which employs 26 people with disabilities, won a reprieve when Sir Ian Wood led a rescue package to keep it in business.
The Glencraft workshop, employing 38 blind and disabled people, has yet to be spared, despite a letter of support from Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson, which was read out at a council meeting last week.
Sultan Feroz, secretary of the trades union council, which organised a demonstration against the cuts at the beginning of this month, said the message from the thousands of marchers who took to the streets was overwhelming.
He added: “These cuts concern everyone from children to pensioners, and we want to say to the council ‘Change your mind or we will change you at the next elections’.”
Professor Norman Bonney, an expert in local government at the Robert Gordon University, said it was too early to say whose heads, if any, would roll as a result of the financial fiasco.
But he agreed it was likely that when the buck finally stopped it would be at the door of elected members, rather than paid officials.
“Ultimately the responsibility for decisions on council spending lies with elected councillors,” he said.