[andrewb]

Originally Posted by Ken Moss

The council votes on how money is spent so stating that it's not really their fault because it was given to them is a very, very poor excuse. It's the equivalent of a sickly child throwing away £25 on sweets and then blaming their parents for giving them birthday money.

I know that the Hyndburn Labour party budget meetings contained lengthy debates about the best way of spending money and sums that were many orders of magnitude less than £591k were very closely scrutinised. Surely the same principle should be applied by those in power when spending public money?

Just because you have it doesn't mean you have to blow it in a cavalier fashion.

The budget is well scrutinised (and costed unlike some Labour budgets of past!). The money was only to be used for the website. I'm not making excuses. I also didn't say it was their fault. I said it wasn't JUST the council's fault. It's not the same as the scenario you suggest, as government knew what it was getting spent on, and how much, since they proposed it and offered the cash.