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21
May 2021
County council's trading company records £639,000 loss
North Yorkshire County Council's trading arm, The Brierley Group, recorded a loss of £639,000 last year.
The council has created numerous companies to generate funding for frontline services.
The authority’s leader and deputy leader, Councillors Carl Les and Gareth Dadd, defended the strategy ahead of the council’s first meeting to discuss the group's performance during the first year of the pandemic.
An officers’ report to the meeting said the ventures, to which the council has committed to loaning some £54 million at preferential rates, had seen a continued “mixed performance” from the previous year.
Provisional figures show the group, which includes education and business services, housebuilding, internet, legal and waste enterprises, delivered a loss after tax for the 2020/21 financial year of £639,000.
The report stated the total revenue generated of £59.9 million was under budget by £4.8 million.
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Officers said North Yorkshire Education Services faced unique challenges throughout the year, and that the pandemic had an adverse impact on the school catering business due to school closures.
While First North Law’s trading in the first half of the year resulted in a £14,000 underperformance, officers said broadband provider NYnet experienced some challenging trading conditions throughout 2020-21, particularly with regard to new customer sales.
The report states waste management company Yorwaste performed well during the last quarter despite trading continuing to be difficult and the business services Veritau group exceeded its budgeted profit for the year.
Cllr Les said:
He said he was optimistic about the firms staging a recovery this year, providing covid variants did not have a major impact on the county.
Cllr Dadd, who is also the council’s finance executive member, said he was proud of what the authority had achieved with its commercialisation agenda.
He said:
He added the authority had a better chance of getting a variety of work done than many if not all other councils because it was the firms’ shareholders, so they had to perform for the authority.
Cllr Dadd said:
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