Fact check: Bogus claims made in Tory leaflets

The library in Guildford has been hard hit during the pandemic, and is facing a continual threat of cuts from the Tory run County Council. However, it's good to see that there is a strong supply of fiction to stock our libraries shelves with, the most recent addition being a Tory leaflet that has been distributed across Guildford.

The leaflet makes a number of wild claims, all of which sound too wild to be true, which is because they are. The truth matters in politics - locally and nationally - which is why we've fact checked the Tory claims. By our reckoning three out of five claims are complete lies, another is a partial lie, and the final claim is technically correct but hugely misleading:

Claim 1: "£3.6m has been handed back to Government from sales of council houses"

Facts: The previous Tory administration failed to have a plan in place to spend the proceeds from the sale of council houses under Right-To-Buy. As a result, starting before the May 2019 local election, the council began repaying unspent money back to the government. Due to a serious accounting failure by the council this repayment of money wasn't discovered by councillors until 2020, at which point the Lib Dem/R4GV coalition took decisive action to put a stop to it, but not before £2.7 million (not £3.6 million) had had to be repaid to the government. So, whilst money from the sale of council houses did have to be repaid to the government, it is almost entirely the fault of the previous Conservative administration for failing to have active housing projects which Right-To-Buy receipts could be spent on.

Verdict: Misleading and partially false. Whilst some Right-To-Buy money had to be handed back to the government it was largely the fault of the previous Conservative administration, and this claim has also been exagerated by £0.9 million.

Claim 2: "£2.5m infrastructure funding was handed back to the Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) due to non-delivery"

Facts: Guildford Borough Council never received this funding. The LEP had agreed to contribute to a potential scheme to improve the roundabout near Tesco as part of plans to create a 'Sustainable Movement Corridor'. However, the scheme was dependent on the agreement of the University of Surrey which owned a small but essential piece of land which the scheme needed to cross. Despite initially agreeing to the scheme, the university changed its mind at the last minute, resulting in the project being put on hold. No funding had to be handed back to the LEP because no funding was ever received by the council. The reason for the project's postponement was entirely outside the council's control.

Verdict: False. No money was ever handed back to the LEP.

Claim 3: "£1.5m grant funding for flood alleviation scheme has been handed back"

Facts: This claim seems to be pure fiction. No-one in the Lib Dems and no officer at Guildford Borough Council has ever heard of this grant funding, let alone received it or had to give it back.

Verdict: False. There is nothing to this claim at all.

Claim 4: "£20.9m has been spent on consultants and agency staff in the last financial year, a 300% increase"

Facts: Council spending is split between day-to-day spending (funded from the regular budget) and major one-off projects (funded from the capital budget). Guildford Borough Council did spend £20.9m on consultants and agency staff in total last year but the increase was solely to the progression of major projects (such as the Walnut Tree Bridge Replacement and the Weyside Urban Village project) which were commissioned by the last Conservative administration and which require outside specialists to deliver.

In reality the council's day-to-day spending on agency staff fell by 15% in the last financial year. Capital projects are funded from a separate budget so money spent on specialists to deliver these projects does not affect the amount of money the council has to spend on public services.

Also included alongside this claim in the Tory leaflet is an accusation that this spending has taken place at the same time as cuts to council funding for the Guildford Action charity. However the council has made no cuts to its funding for this charity.

Verdict: Highly misleading, but not technically false. Consultancy spending on major capital projects is up, but day-to-day spending on agency staff is down by 15%.

Claim 5: "There has been a £3m loss resulting from the panic sale of the Liongate office building"

Facts: The Liongate office building was bought by the previous Conservative administration in 2013 for £13 million. However, due to the outdated condition of the building its value had already been written down by £0.85 million before the start of the pandemic. The building came with a tenant in place, but the tenant had the right to break their tenancy in 2020 and did so, leaving the council with an empty building which they were paying £1.1 million a year in business rates and maintenance costs on.

On the basis of market conditons due to Covid, and the high business rates bill, Guildford Borough Council decided to sell the building for £10.2 million (based on offers from 10 different bidders on the open market), plus £700,000 from the tenant due to the state the building had been left in. The council therefore received back £10.9 million of the £13 million it had paid for the building. The council also received almost £6 million in rent during the time it owned the building, meaning that overall the council made a net profit from its ownership of the building.

Given that the value of the building had already been written down by £850,000 before the start of the Covid pandemic, which further reduced commercial property values, it seems like that the council would have lost more money by holding on to the building. By selling when they did the council was in fact able to ensure the taxpayer made a net profit on the original investment. However, whether the last administration was wise to invest in the building in the first place is a different question.

Verdict: Misleading and false. There was no panic sale and the council made a net profit from its ownership of the Liongate building.

Conclusion

Three out of the five claims made by the Conservatives are lies. Both of the other two claims are highly misleading and one is a partial lie.

While we Lib Dems understand that not everyone will agree with decisions made by the council's coalition administration, we think that the lies being spread in Tory leaflets are unacceptable. Through their willingness to lie and mislead people the Conservatives are serving only to discredit themselves and politics in general. People deserve honesty from their elected representatives, not lies and bogus claims.

The reality is that central government has been cutting local government funding for many years, and the current budget gap facing Guildford Borough Council is caused by the combination of these cuts (a 39% reduction for Guildford in the last 4 years) with the additional costs of supporting our residents through the last eighteen months of the pandemic. Despite this, the Lib Dem/R4GV coalition is still finding innovative ways to save money so that we can continue protecting public services from cuts.

Continual underfunding of local government has caused other issues, only now becoming apparent. For example, the Tories' failure to address the infrastructure deficit has directly led to the recent news that the A3 through Guildford has the worst nitrogen dioxide levels in the country. Throughout 2020, despite the sharp drop in traffic because of the pandemic, they were twice as high as the legal limit. Sadly, the A3 pollution is not a work of fiction, so it's not surprising that the Tories aren't drawing attention to that.

It is also worth remembering that 85% of our council tax goes to Tory-run Surrey County Council which has an appalling record of waste and mismanagement. The record of Surrey proves that it's the Conservatives who are the experts in wasting public money, as well as at showing a blatant disregard for the truth.