I’ve blogged before about the unusual decisions on where to spend the advertising budget for Haringey Council’s One Borough, One Future fund. What about the decisions on what the fund should support?

Bailing out the Labour-run council’s own failed policies looks to be a runner, judging by the latest news as reported by Haringey Liberal Democrats:

It has been revealed that Haringey Council has applied to its own ‘One borough, One future’ fund in order tackle problems with bin collections. Liberal Democrats have said that this is the clearest sign yet that Labour’s introduction of fortnightly residual waste collections is in chaos as the Council itself has admitted more resources are required.

A briefing from the cabinet member in charge of bin collections received a week ago includes information that a bid for five full time officers until March 2013 has been made.

Cllr Jim Jenks, Liberal Democrat Environment Spokesperson, comments: “The fact that the Council has applied to its own fund for more resources is unbelievable. Bin collections are a basic service that all residents pay Council Tax to provide. The Lib Dems have said over and over again that Labour should have consulted on this major service change. If it had done so it would have been aware in advance of the problems the Council is now facing.”

Cllr Rachel Allison (Highgate), who has been battling to improve bin collections in the Miltons Area, adds: “You couldn’t make this up. Only in Haringey could you have a Council who has to apply to its own ‘innovation’ fund to get bin collections right.

“How much is this mess going to end up costing the taxpayer?

“The One Borough, One Future fund is supposed to tackle inequality not bin collections. The only thing that’s unequal about this is that Haringey’s refuse collection is clearly not equal to Camden’s.”