Greens challenge Labour council about homelessness in Oxford

At a meeting of Full Council this week, Green Councillors spoke out about Labour-run Oxford City Council's £2.348m surplus, equivalent to about 10% of the City's annual net budget, and focused in on an underspend of £0.4m on homelessness prevention [1].

Says Green Councillor and Finance spokesperson Cllr Craig Simmons; "It is frankly scandalous that we have around 100 people sleeping rough on our streets whilst City Council money budgeted for spending on homelessness prevention is sitting in the bank unused."

FMI Cllr Craig Simmons 0773 980 3047

Note 1

 Item 8: Full Council 20th July 2017,  extract page 91: General Fund Service area position

8. At the year end the General Fund service areas showed a favourable variance of £2.348 million. The most significant of these variances are explained below:

Housing and Property – year end favourable variance of (£0.797) million, due to an underspend of £0.400 million within the Homelessness prevention area...