Council to spend €307m this year

JUST SHY of €307 million will be doled out by Cork County Council this year - a figure to stop and think about ahead of Friday’s elections.

In the run up to the local elections on Friday, Publicpolicy.ie has released a new interactive site dedicated to local authority finances.

The result of several months of research, it provides a breakdown of every euro being spent by the 31 local councils this year. It allows you to compare your council’s spend versus the national average, and you can compare local council’s spend against each other.

A brand new website, http://localauthorityfinances.com/ is dedicated to presenting the results of this research in a colourful and interactive way.

Looking at Cork for example, Cork County Council will spend €306.7 million this year, or roughly €767 per person, while the City Council will spend €165.2 million, which amounts to €1,386 per person.

The figures on the site show that the priorities of the two councils are quite different, with the city council spending relatively more of its budget on housing and environmental services, while the county council spends more on roads and water.

CorkCoCo spends €37.86m, or 12.34% of its budget on local authority and Traveller housing. Looking at that per person, CorkCoCo spends €94.69 - a fraction of the national average of €160.93.

Maintaining local roads, public lighting and parking facilities, CorkCoCO spends €178.26 per person, or €71.27m in total, ahead of the national average of €169.67 per head.

Another big ticket item, CorkCoCo spends €157.68 per person on water supply and waste matter management, compared to €155.90 nationally. That’s a total of €63m per annum in total for Cork, or 20.56% of the budget

There is again a big deffrerence between CorkCoCo on fire services, waste and litter management, with our council spending €90.36 person, against €146.27 nationally.

In leisure services and libraries CorCoCo again comes in with a much lower spend person, at €41.10, compared to €75.90 nationally. At a total spend of €16.13m it represents 5.36% of the Cork budget.

However, in development management - that’s planning, tourism and heritage, and local economic development - CorkCoCo spends more, €65.67 per head (26.26m in total), compared to €59.57 nationally.

When it comes to costs such as college grants, administration of commercial rates and motor taxes, local representatives' salaries and expenses, Cork county again outstrips the national average, spending €139.36 per head, compared with €123.75.

Anyone can access the results of this research to discover how their council spends its cash. “It’s easy to use. All people need to do is go t o http://localauthorityfinances.com/ to find out the detail about how their local authority spends its money and how it is funded.” says economist and senior researcher with Public Policy.ie Cormac O’Sullivan.

“This will be the first local election since the introduction of the Local Property Tax, which councils can raise or lower by up to 15%, and the public are understandably curious about the services provided by their local authorities.

“For most people, this is the first time they will be faced with the tradeoff between providing more local services at the cost of higher taxation, or reducing their tax bill at the cost of cutting services. This site will help the electorate make an informed decision.”

Public Policy.ie is an independent organisation, which is fully funded by Atlantic Philanthropies.