Govt to probe £72m council pension deal

PLYMOUTH City Council could face restrictions on its borrowing and even have to sell off assets as a result of its controversial £72m shares and pension deal.

- WILLIAM TELFORD

The Government has set out a list of potential conditions it could place on the council, including restricting where it can borrow from, hiking interest rates on repayments and any "additional bespoke conditions" the local government minister might decide on.

At a recent audit and governance committee meeting the authority's auditors said the council could even be made to sell off assets. The probe needs to be completed before the end of September this year - which is the cut-off date for all accounts from 2019/20 to 2022/23 to be signed off.

This could be "tricky", the council's auditors have said, because there are 18 other councils requesting financial help in the way of a capitalisation direction from the Government. Two investigations are to be held into how the council used money borrowed from the Government's Public Works Loan Board to buy shares in London-based company Miel Solutions Ltd, in 2019, which then transferred the cash into the authority's pension scheme wiping out a deficit.