The Government has rejected council concerns about key Oflog metrics that have been labelled ‘misleading and meaningless’.
A number of local authorities have complained Oflog’s methodology is inflating the debt servicing and total debt metrics for all councils that have a ringfenced Housing Revenue Account (HRA) when compared with others that do not have their own stock.
For example, Bassetlaw DC’s current debt servicing as a percentage of core spending power is 10% but the figure increases to 38% in the draft data published by Oflog, which takes into account its HRA, while its total debt as a percentage of core spending power rises from 208% to 916%.
Local government secretary Michael Gove has been told two of the published metrics are 'fundamentally flawed' and has been urged to republish the data after changing the methodology.
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