Response to Sunday Times article

January 2011

Dear Editor,

Your newspaper’s inaccurate reporting of Haringey Council (“‘Slash and burn’ councils spare pet projects”, 23 January) needs correcting on three points. First, we have not spent £2million on our website. The media reports which originally quoted this figure – a figure your reporters used without checking - were based on incomplete, inconsistent and inaccurate data. The true cost of running our website since 2003 - including the provision of a wide range of online services including payments, council tax, mapping, minutes, library catalogue, etc plus various directories and microsites – is £745,311, which is less than £125,000 per year.

Second, we have not spent £100,000 on electric charge points. The cost of this scheme has been met by Transport for London and central government grants.

Finally, we are not cutting services to ‘fritter away millions’ on ‘pet projects’, as your reporters inaccurately accuse. What we are doing is trying to balance an £85million budget gap created by central government cuts, including a 13 per cent reduction in grants next year – the second highest cut in the capital, and 4.5 per cent above the average for outer London boroughs.

Yours sincerely,

Claire

Claire Kober
Leader of Haringey Council