At full Council today, in advance of the Conservative Notice of Motion calling for a vote of no confidence in his leadership, Cllr Sam Corcoran announced that he would stand down as leader of Council.
Since 2019, Cllr Corcoran has overseen the the dramatic decline of this Council’s financial and operational sustainability, both as leader of a Cabinet System with executive powers and more recently as the public face of the Committee System. This decline has not happened suddenly but has been highlighted at every budget meeting and multiple committees.
In 2023 the leader proudly announced that for the first time, CEC had a balanced 4-year budget - it failed to balance within the first quarter.
He has championed an overly ambitious carbon cutting programme that is currently undeliverable and delivery dates of carbon neutrality by 2025 have had to be extended.
And whilst DSG SEN debt is a pressure for all local authorities, the excessive level in Cheshire East, places this council as a national outlier.
Five years on, this Council is in the unconscionable position of having to make £100m of savings in the next four years, address a separate DSG (High Needs SEN) debt of £80m (which if not controlled will rise to £1 Billion by 2030), an Inadequate OFSTED Report and a damning LGA Corporate Peer Review Report.
At Council today, councillors had to make painful and difficult decisions on emergency transformation that will impact on all residents across the Cheshire East Borough for years to come.
Without the confidence of elected members and of Cheshire East residents, Sam Corcoran’s position as Leader was untenable.
The Conservative Group confirmed:
”We appreciate that this will have been a painful decision for Cllr Corcoran but it is the right one. We acknowledge the appropriateness of his resignation at this time and look forward to working collegiately with all officers and elected members in our role as the main opposition Group, as we start to redress the fiscal and operational quagmire that has now been exposed.”
