Peterborough councillors asked to hand back their community funding to support council’s financial situation

Peterborough councillors were asked to hand back their community funding to support the council’s dire financial situation.

Each of the 60 Peterborough city councillors receive £3,000 each year as part of a Community Leadership Fund (CLF) which enables them to create and support projects to benefit residents in their wards.

Peterborough City Council recently released a table of each councillor’s CLF spending figures for 2024/25, with some spending all of their allocation and others spending nothing at all.

When the councillors who spent nothing were contacted by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), it was revealed that the council’s chief financial officer had emailed councillors in October last year giving them the option to forgo any unspent CLF funding to support the council’s financial situation.

The email stated that it was preferred if councillors did not spend their remaining CLF allocation, but were free to do so if they wished.

Deputy mayor councillor Wayne Fitzgerald, leader of the Conservative Group, was one of the councillors who spent none of their CLF allocation.

The West ward councillor said: “We were asked to surrender anything that we hadn’t spent in order to make budget savings. We had earmarked the money for several projects in our case, however, we had to put them off because it was requested where councillors hadn’t committed to give the money back to the central pot.

“We were looking at several projects that required saving up a couple of years. As the project hadn’t moved on, we took a calculated decision to help out the council by not using the funding right now.”

Conservative councillor Scott Warren of Bretton ward cited similar reasons for not spending any of his funding.

He said: “I was actually in the process of doing stuff but we had to do what’s right for the council and sometimes we need to do what we need to do.”

Another Bretton ward councillor, Richard Strangward (Labour), who didn’t spend any of the allocation, said he had a larger project planned which didn’t come off.

He said: “I was of the understanding that the funding was going to be withdrawn. By the time we were told it wasn’t going to be, it was too late to spend it anyway.”

A spokesperson for the city council said: “The details of each councillor’s Community Leadership Fund spend is on our website. All unspent money has been rolled forward to the next financial year (2025/26).”

Some councillors still spent all of their CLF allocation in their wards, including Green Party leader Nicola Day of the Orton Waterville ward.

Cllr Day used £5,000 of her CLF allocation (including around £2,000 carried over from last year) to fund a number of things in her ward.

These included defibrillators, roof repairs at a local football club, the setting up of a mental health support group and resources for a Goldhay Arts learning programme.

She said: “I found it really easy to spend the money and it’s going to be really beneficial in a number of ways for my ward.

“I think it’s a vitally important fund and I really can’t understand why councillors are unable to spend it in other places. It’s really useful to our local community and if I was given £6,000 I would be able to easily spend that as well.”

Peterborough First councillors John and Judy Fox, and Sarah Hillier, of the Werrington ward feel passionately about the CLF. All three councillors spent all of the allocation in their ward.

Cllr John Fox said: “I think if you are given that money to spend on the community then that is what you should do. If you can’t spend it, it should be put back into the melting pot and given to councillors that do spend it.

“I’m shocked every year to see that some councillors don’t spend a penny. We could spend it three times over.”

Peterborough City Council’s budget document states that in 2025/26, councillors’ CLF allocation will be reduced from £3,000 to £1,000 in order to save £120,000 a year.