Aiming to rectify historical issues, start to rebuild capacity in essential front-line services, and respond to increases in demand-led pressures in social care and housing services - the spending plans of £132m for the next financial year are an increase of £34m against the current year’s budget and includes savings of £6m from transforming services.
The budget – which also includes government approval for a request of £103m exceptional financial support to rectify £30m of historical accountancy errors - sets out increased spending on:
- Adult social care: additional funding of £9.4m to meet the needs of the services and retain permanent staff now the service is back in-house.
- Children’s services: additional funding of £9.8m to meet rising demand and costs of care placements.
- Housing and temporary accommodation: an additional £1.8m funding to meet rising demand and costs.
- Neighbourhood Services: reinstating £3.8m of maintenance budgets for trees, street lighting, lampposts, play areas and road signs.
Councillors also voted to increase borough council tax by 8.99% from April 2025 - following government approval to increase above the 4.99% cap - to help address the unsustainable low levels of income generated to fund local services as a result of years of historic cuts to council tax over a sustained period from 2010.
While the budget starts to tackle the problems of the past and is an important first step to making the council financially sustainable, borough bills will remain the lowest of all other authorities in Berkshire and the wider region. Additional support for the borough’s most vulnerable residents, to protect them from the additional increase, has also been built into plans.
The budget also reflects the council’s Financial Improvement and Sustainability Plan – addressing the recommendations from the independent CIPFA review - which outlines the actions and decisions needed over the short and medium-term to get the council and its finances back on track.
Council Leader, Cllr Simon Werner said: “This budget represents the next stage in fixing the mess we inherited – allowing us to move forward with our Financial Improvement and Sustainability Plan to get the council on a strong financial footing and make the borough cleaner, greener and safer for our residents.
“It will also mean that we can start putting back money into the services that people tell us are important to them, and even start to replace those that were historically stripped out – including maintaining our streets and supporting more of our most vulnerable residents.”
The council’s Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance, Cllr Lynne Jones said: “Our agreed budget for the next financial year reflects the difficult decisions we have had to make in the context of the high levels of debt the council has, combined with the borough’s unsustainable low levels of both council tax income and government funding compared to other authorities.
“This is undoubtedly an important next step. However, we need government to bring forward sustainable solutions to the financial pressures facing local government, through their upcoming Spending Review - or further council tax increases will be needed.”
