Dear Editor

What has gone wrong?

After five statutory recommendations, a one-star rating for weak financial management, a poor CQC report, £91 million lost on commercial investments, and now a ministerial Best Value judgment expressing significant concern, residents are entitled to ask: what has gone wrong at Somerset Council?

Around £40 million spent on temporary and agency staff, £19 million on consultancy, £16m uncollected council tax and £40 million in debt interest are enormous sums which, with questionable £53m savings last year plus a £30m overspend already this year, invite serious questions about Liberal Democrat leadership.

Five possible questions are:

First: After a year to prepare and adjacent to successful Wiltshire, why were there no merger announcements on vesting day?

Second: How can the council achieve Best Value after spending £12 million on payoffs for 49 experienced senior officers and 152 other staff, before knowing which jobs would actually be needed?

Third: How can they get Best Value when, after two statutory recommendations, another 300 staff were hurriedly let go to save £33 million, still without a merger plan?

Fourth: How can they claim Best Value when, after declaring a financial emergency, consultants were allowed to 'boil the ocean' with a 'full council diagnostic', instead of requiring highly paid senior managers to merge obvious common functions?

And fifth — most strikingly: how can they get Best Value when, four years after authority was granted to merge the councils, the supposedly low-hanging fruit of Future Council Design is still just that — in future Wave 3 of Inspiring Innovation?

These are not academic questions. They go to the heart of whether residents will ever receive the quite modest savings due under One Somerset.

The Liberal Democrat Stronger Somerset campaign, for two unitary councils plus three other organisations, cost taxpayers £1 million.

So we are entitled to ask:

Are these eight external judgements simply down to extraordinarily poor management — or are unitary savings being systematically delayed?

And, after all this time, when will residents finally see the savings they are due?

Chris Mann