The levelling up secretary is ‘minded to’ escalate government intervention at Nottingham due to ‘serious concerns’ over the city council’s finances and governance.

Local government minister Simon Hoare announced today that Michael Gove is looking to appoint commissioners to the authority for two years. 

It would escalate an intervention that began with the establishment of an improvement and assurance board in January 2021.

The council, which recently issued a section 114 notice, ‘is still not acting at the required pace to make the necessary improvements’, according to the board.

Mr Hoare said: ‘Weaknesses in finance, transformation, along with an underlying culture of poor governance, continue to manifest themselves.’

The appointment of a lead commissioner, a commissioner for finance, and a commissioner for transformation has been proposed.

This team structure was announced to ‘provide clarity to the council around the most pressing priorities, to make clear that there can be no slippage in making the necessary improvements, and to enable representations to be made before the final decisions’, Mr Hoare said.

The levelling up department invited the council to give its views on the proposals by 2 January.

Council leader David Mellen said: ‘Clearly the appointment of commissioners would be very disappointing and not something that that we would want to happen.

Cllr Mellen added: ‘The current situation for Nottingham and a great many other authorities is very challenging and in much part caused by underfunding.

'There will continue to be difficult decisions that have to be made. But we are committed and determined to do what it is right for the city and its residents.'

The council’s chief executive, Mel Barrett, said: ‘Although we have previously said that our strong preference was to continue working with the improvement and assurance board, we are committed to working effectively with whatever arrangements government put in place, so that the intervention can be as successful as possible in as short a time as possible.’

If this article was of interest, then check out: 'Can local government take much more?', 'Preventing future Section 114 notices' and 'How to fix local government finance'.