3 Weeks after setting a budget, Morpeth Tories are about to set another.

'In secret'.

With the ink not even dry on the budget reluctantly set at County Hall following promises that the secret all-conservative cabinet will share all policy decisions with other parties and that the public will be better served through more diligent scrutiny the wheels have come off.

Dodgy decision making is back on the cards with a massive campaign to bring contracted volunteers (slave labour?) in to cover for jobs that will shortly disappear creating a two tier workforce and their financial plans are to be reworked into a new economic plan as SEND Funding along with Social Services budgets are NOT expected to cover service costs.

It also seems that those same Morpeth Tories have lost faith in their treasury department and are proposing to bring in a national team of costly accountants to ‘look after’ the small beer by council finance funding standards, cash from the few local jobs data centre project being developed over the next decade at Cambois in South East Northumberland.

The Council leader has also announced a huge number of jobs to be created in Northumberland for the third time since taking office (and we codgers won’t hold our breath) as very few new jobs have been created since May 2017 by the Morpeth only team under his banner. He and his Britain failing party's announcements in 2021 and 2022 both fell by the wayside so how can anyone have trust in anything spewing from the lips of Tories locally. 

Recently the only Tory jobs suggestion for the poorest area in Northumberland has come from its top Blyth Tory Town Councillor Erskine who is running a consultation on facebook to bring a ‘Car Boot Sale’ into the Town Centre. What sort of retail and jobs improvement is that?

Car boot sale as a catalyst, the county council leader seems to be heavily supportive of a further rundown of his poorest town as ‘he’ the single democratically elected shareholder of Advance Northumberland is keen on refinancing  the always busy Manor Walks shopping centre, a centre his council technically already owns, improving it further at the expense of other townships across the County.

With the only common theme running through this Council is its level of dysfunctionality? 

The lack of release of any real improvement plans or information so the paying public can check on how its council is doing on the national stage, when scoped along with the low level of information in the Council meeting minutes on scrutiny findings and results shows exactly why after just a few weeks a budget to resolve the budget has had to be pushed out hidden in a blaze of hopefully third time lucky announcements of huge numbers of jobs to be delivered over the next four years. 

But without the announcement of when and where new social housing is to be developed, better rural buses routed into work zones and a greater understanding of younger workers' needs his promises will fail yet again , leaving Northumberland as a dormitory county for the rich second home owners who turn up for six weeks in the summer.

https://northeastbylines.co.uk/news/education/northumberland-further-multi-million-pound-overspend-on-councils-send-expected/

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/news/ambitious-plans-be-unveiled-countys-economic-future

https://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/news/19425544.green-light-new-blyth-gigaplant-create-8-000-jobs/

https://www.facebook.com/Richard4BasildonAndBillericay/posts/this-is-massive-news-thousands-of-jobs-just-up-the-road-in-blyth-and-thousands-m/639070980880204/

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/people/northumberland-well-placed-for-vital-jobs-growth-says-levelling-up-minister-3608101

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/about-council/working-northumberland-county-council/volunteering#:~:text=Find%20out%20about%20the%20types,volunteer%20opportunities%20across%20our%20services.

Dysfunctional Tory Council caught ‘gaslighting’ its residents?

Northumberland County Council, defined over the last 14 years of a Tory Government in office as a ‘rural all purpose local authority’ even though 54% of its population live in the cramped urban South-east of the county, have been complaining about the change in funding with the Government of the day steering increases in spending power to help reorganise and smarten up urban areas everywhere.

Northumberland County Council pre 2009 was a strategic County Council level authority and lived up to that name very well indeed during the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic. Then a creep by national governments to integrate levels of local government to try to manage local government cost factors changed the face of strategic need leading to District Council services being integrated into the slimmed down highways, education, health and social care Counties and strategy slipping over to regional based ‘Combined Authorities’ utilising the skills of the private sector to try to improve the new conglomerate councils and get them moving at all levels.

Eventually regional mayors were brought in to help the whole public sector work together for the benefit of residents thereby easing the strategic burden even further from your local elected representative to enable them to concentrate on local needs and issues.

That change appears to have been grasped by most North-east Councils with the exception of Northumberland County Council which since 2017 has been attempting and failing to ‘hark back’ to the good old days when landlords, ladies and farmers ruled the roosts and the County spent its cash on improving their lot.

With the national picture changing through the Tories in office slashing budgets and grants each and every year in an even more rapid attempt to bring the ‘old ways’ under more modernistic control,Northumberland were inspected  by Max Caller, a government economic wizard and labelled dysfunctional in his final report.

With that in the background and the dysfunctional Tory-led County rarely sharing its position on the national league tables or leaking any information on its decision making into the public arena or even accepting the mayor for the region now runs strategy and direction they came out against the latest grant settlement from the Government in office who are trying to improve run down low income urban areas and level up society with local government’s help.

The leaning poured out with tongue in cheek vitriol gaslighting the residents of the county was that this change from rural to urban which gives a massive lift in spending power to the Council meant the Council couldn't deliver services in rural areas. With the shift of the £3.5m rural services grant being moved to an increase in spending power to manage an urban refresh over the next three years being pushed by Cllr. Nick Oliver as a disaster.

‘Wor Nick’, well named, showed no remorse when agreeing with his cabinet cohorts that 7,000 mainly urban families should be slashed from the Council social housing register as the Council whose finances he looks after wants to be seen as strategic, leaving delivery to others, effectively doing nothing.

The tales being told to the public exuding from County Hall in Morpeth forget that rural projects are now handled by the Mayor for the region and the combined authority or that care in now slipping further further towards being managed by the NHS  and in that issuing gaslighting publicity covered in crocodile tears has been exposed as ‘affordable’ by their own hand as Northumberland County Council did not apply to be considered for ‘exceptional extra funding being offered by Government to those who need it’ exposing their vulnerability towards being caught out (Boris Johnsoning) the public and they have.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/exceptional-financial-support-for-local-authorities-for-2026-27

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/economy-and-regeneration/projects-and-programmes/rural-growth-and-innovation/rural-asset-multiplier#:~:text=Applicants%20to%20submit%20applications%20by,wants%20to%20quickly%20get%20a

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5z7w9ez28o#:~:text=16%20March%202025,more%20to%20deliver%20council%20services.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8e9zn6502jo

https://realnorthumberlandmurky.blogspot.com/2026/02/council-housing-chaos-across.html

Northumberland under pressure to resign top tories share a history of taking homes out of Council Control. are they at it again?.

 

Northumberland County Councillors, Horncastle and the Council Leader Sanderson from their respective former district council’s, Tynedale District and Castle Morpeth District were both embroiled in moving Council Homes out of Council control.

Councillor Sanderson at Castle Morpeth was involved with his former Tory partner, Councillor Peter Jackson when they forced through a large-scale voluntary transfer of their housing stock following years and years of a sad decline in housing repairs.

Councillor Horncastle sat on Tynedale District Council when they moved their homes to a social housing provider for a miserly £30m.

It enabled large groups of Northumberland Tories to dodge residents in serious housing need and send them on to other providers.

Councillor Horncastle, laughingly named as the Tories housing lead on their one party cabinet is fully tied in with support for ‘affordable homes only’, leaving Council housing to rot on its footings.

Residents across the County and in particular Council tenants have had enough of these two and they are now under pressure to resign.

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/social-housing-regulator-finds-serious-failings-at-northumberland-county-council-5524383?fbclid=IwY2xjawP5tkxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEem6NLowU-za3oLah8S-nF3i_PploiNtCC2pWZEaGlgvG1zGMD1kXp3Jnom_8_aem_fhcIDaF80z2O7ycZ-MeKcA

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/county-council-hit-with-c4-rating-over-unacceptable-failings-95873?fbclid=IwY2xjawP84q5leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeQKk3umMH9QbLBvn-T653HSlmjqRkLB99U7VG9-ohS0x0qvwFqrtPioPS8X8_aem_JOvAD9UcOhWizXWIZju0tw

https://www.northumberlandnationalpark.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Northumberland-County-Wide-Housing-Needs-Survey-2012-Final-Report-10.07.13.pdf

https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/NorthumberlandCountyCouncil/media/Planning-and-Building/planning%20policy/Studies%20and%20Evidence%20Reports/Housing%20Studies/9.%20Local%20housing%20needs%20assessments/Blyth-Housing-Needs-Assessment_Final-Report-June-2023.pdf

Council Housing Chaos across Northumberland.

 

Tory Leadership and matey politicians under massive pressure, ‘the camel's back is now fractured’.

Being the second most wanted service from your local council nationally after streetcare 4uservices, council and social housing is seen as a prime need, requiring delivery at a high level in both quantity and quality.

Northumberland county council  have for the last eight years been put under pressure from Labour, Libdem and Independent councillors about their complete lack of interest in providing safe and secure social/council homes for those in need. 

Instead they have stuck with the expectations of their builder development ‘friends’ constructing and sometimes offering to sell affordable homes and not having NCC planners write them off for affordability reasons.

Northumberland’s problems don’t just stop there when it comes to getting affordable homes delivered as average salaries across the county sit at £9,000 per annum below  the rest of the north-east region* (plumlot).

The worst element of this most recent report by the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) who is an independent non-departmental public body in England responsible for regulating registered providers of social housing, including local authorities and housing associations. RSH ensures landlords provide safe, quality homes, sets economic and consumer standards, and has powers to inspect, intervene, and fine providers that fail to meet these requirements. RSH story sits within the press response issued from the cellars of the Council’s leadership where its communication gnomes sit under dull short wick tilly lamps.. 

The council's leader has indicated within his press report that his council is spending huge sums of money repairing the Council owned estate. His comments over the last eight years show clearly that he hasn’t noticed that the Council’s housing revenue and borrowing requirements for housing sit in ring fenced housing accounts. In reality the money is in the ownership of the Council’s tenants, not the political heads of the minority administration run by farmers, solicitors and traders who have little interest in aiding people who are asking for help with their housing needs.

In an attempt to cover over the fact that Northumberland Conservatives are very anti-council homes they took a decision to write 7,000 people from their housing list hoping no one will notice they may have needs that the Council is unable to meet, hence the visit from RSH.

Being a Council  who holds a zero interest in housing people they look down upon, they appear to be joined by friends from REFORM most of whom are ex conservatives, landlords, or local businessmen they appear to hold sympathies even further to the right than the local Conservatives a stance that will be as much use to tenants as a poke in the eye.

Northumberland hasn't built enough Council housing since 2017 following four years of a Labour administration who developed 400 new homes during their short time in office. 

With housing sales still at a peak and the Council with 460 unrepaired homes with no income from rents coming in, the residents of the County have been placed in an insidious disgraceful position which has put the Council and its needy residents in turmoil. Something needs to happen as a matter of urgency.

This chaos on top of the Max Caller report where the council picked up its ‘dysfunctional culture’ label and hasn’t shook it off is very damaging to the council's reputation with not only 7,000 written off families seeking the end of this desert of hope called Northumberland, many from all political persuasions who know how needy people require help are raising their voices to seek the end of this ‘dodgy’ administration.

NOTES:

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/social-housing-regulator-finds-serious-failings-at-northumberland-county-council-5524383?fbclid=IwY2xjawP5tkxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEem6NLowU-za3oLah8S-nF3i_PploiNtCC2pWZEaGlgvG1zGMD1kXp3Jnom_8_aem_fhcIDaF80z2O7ycZ-MeKcA

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cost-of-living-crisis-labour-keir-starmer-b2918064.html?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAqDggAKgYICjDN2nswv7cJMNWu8AI&utm_content=rundown&gaa_at=g&gaa_n=AWEtsqe13DhbkJ8MlVJfRWwjvRYWaAKvvQkGuCjJ006D1eErThjkGoBNPCRJ-7JmY-uSruPfy72NlQdbi1_v&gaa_ts=698ce295&gaa_sig=5r8gl6GS9RGYcTT4oTz8PfIecCPAA_Q0PlZKLmnpVzGexZ9cEX2F9hq1ZwHehxjw88TjH-FLX8pqJGSO7CBkeA%3D%3D

https://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/news/25688428.7-000-wiped-off-housing-waiting-list-northumberland/

https://www.plumplot.co.uk/Northumberland-salary-and-unemployment.html

The SAPS might have it?

The problems and costs encountered by the bankrupt Birmingham City Council has caused them to act in hindsight and cancel the reintroduction of its yet to emerge as a viable alternative to off the shelf packages for IT services.

Birmingham fell into the trap of trying a one size fits all system via ORACLE, the costs spiralled following a damaging equal value claim by workers that dragged into the position it finds itself in today.

The TIMES reports, Birmingham City Council has spent more than £2.5m hiring staff to manually fix errors caused by a failed Oracle accounting system, with nearly 100,000 hours logged since 2023. The IT rollout, launched in 2022, spiralled from a £19m upgrade to an estimated £170m including ongoing costs. 

Financial data became unreliable, suppliers went unpaid, and more than £30m in council tax and business rates were written off. Auditors blamed excessive system customisation and weak oversight, calling the failure unprecedented. 

The problems compounded existing pressures from equal pay liabilities and followed a bin strike that highlighted wider operational strain. The council has delayed relaunching the Oracle system until later in 2026.

Other Councils including the reported by experts as being completely  dysfunctional, Northumberland County Council, who in layman's parlance ‘doesn’t know its arse from its elbow’ appears to be locked into Oracle Cloud to manage its business suite and public face whilst developing a stare into the future with Oracle's fusion cloud and AI system.

Northumberland’s departmental heads may have chosen a better bypass route to satisfy its democratically elected one party cabinet members than Birmingham, as they have chosen their own systems to run alongside the Council’s one party cabinet system’s wish to develop business cases for everything and nothing with costs running through the roof for that development and no system to curb borrowing at very high rates when compared to clear thinking financially aligned councils who make decisions to support localism over business.

Let's take a simple example. The social services department at Northumberland County Council chose Liquidamber via a business case to its one party cabinet to run its systems as a stand alone system. To get information required by a wider council departmental structure links with other systems were developed and that integration has been blamed internally (according to workers in that field) for the ever present annual hard to locate overspends being made by social services. 

With Northumberland never undertaking scrutiny that includes information required to scope in change, mainly sticking with Post Decision scrutiny instead of the widely accepted in Local Government Pre-Decision making scrutiny which would define local people's needs for any decision before its taken, which the majority of high performing Councils rely upon, such as league tables, national and local performance data leaves Councillors outside the cabinet, local businesses, families and other Council departments struggling to understand why their Council rarely improves.

On the other hand smaller Councils using SAP systems seem to be able to share information between departments much more easily than giant monoliths like Birmingham and Northumberland.

SAP (Systems, Applications, & Products in Data Processing) computer systems are the world's leading, highly configurable Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software, integrating business functions like finance, HR, supply chain, and manufacturing into a single, real-time data platform. Essential for Councillors who need to share what's happening on the ground with their electorate.

It's great to go modern sometimes but in the eyes of people who want to know what their Council is doing for them, the SAPS have it.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/11/opinion_piece/