Liverpool Council: Troubled authority has turned corner, mayor says

Whitehall officials have said they are now "optimistic" about the council's future

Troubled Liverpool Council has "turned a corner" after months of supervision by government commissioners, the city's mayor has said.

The authority has been under pressure ever since a damning report highlighted issues of financial mismanagement and a toxic culture.

Whitehall officials have said they are now "optimistic" about the progress being made.

Mayor Joanne Anderson said she "absolutely agreed" in the process.

Lead commissioner Mike Cunningham said his team had previously been concerned about the scale of the turnaround facing the city and in the early stages of the intervention they were "not convinced that the scale and urgency had properly landed".

But they were now "much more confident about that", the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

In the next four months the council has to find ways to plug a £73 million funding shortfall, with warnings of service cuts and job losses on the horizon.

'Difficult decisions'

A document outlining where savings could be made was published by the authority last month.

Mr Cunningham said his team had seen "a real recognition that difficult decisions need to be made, they need to be made sensibly in a prioritised way but at pace."

Responding to the commissioners' assessment, Ms Anderson said: "I absolutely agree we've turned a corner but you know they've never talked about staying longer. They've never felt the need to use the powers. 

"Our capability and capacity has always been the issue and once we get permanent appointments in post that should address that. We've got to recruit a permanent chief executive."

The mayor also agreed with an assessment made by Mr Cunningham that relations between the Whitehall officials and council representatives had improved after a challenging start. 

The commissioners are halfway through their stint in the city and are due to remain until June 2024.