Budget blunder is no surprise

Sep 6 2007 Liverpool Daily Post

JUST when we thought we had heard every revelation about the scale of this year’s Mathew Street festival fiasco, another one comes along to marvel at.

The latest bombshell is that the festival’s budget was overspent by at least £80,000, despite the outdoor element of the festival being cancelled.

Earlier this week, the Daily Post revealed the council spent £680,000 on the three-day 2006 event, making it £180,000 over budget.

This year, the budget was cut from £500,000 to £400,000, making it "an accident waiting to happen" according to the deputy leader of the city council’s Labour group.

Yet, despite the scaled-down nature of this year’s event, the cost currently stands at £480,000 and rising.

It is some feat for even a downsized version to cost more than was budgeted for, but then perhaps nothing about the sorry saga of this year’s Mathew Street festival should surprise us any more.

It has, needless to say, become a political football between the two main groups on Liverpool City Council, as the story we carry today makes clear.

The opposition Labour group renewed calls for a QC to conduct an independent investigation into the shambles, and called for council leader Warren Bradley to resign.

The ruling Liberal Democrat group rejected both proposals, and said they would await the result of an ongoing internal inquiry under city chief exec- utive Colin Hilton. But the Lib-Dems did agree to bring in an independent invest- igator to "report upon the findings with- in the report", if that was "considered necessary" by the city council.

Perhaps the saddest thing of all about this continuing fiasco is the damage it has done to Liverpool’s reputation – both within and outside the city – at a time when it should be showing its best face to the world.

There is still much to look forward to and much to be proud of as the city prepares for its Capital of Culture year, but the complacency and dismissive attitude shown by the city council’s leadership towards each successive revelation does no-one any favours.