WOKINGHAM council staff will receive a 1.75% pay increase to help with the cost of living.
The rise is backdated to April 1, 2021, and was first mooted by the previous Conservative-run administration in February. At a meeting of Wokingham Borough Council’s new executive committee on Thursday, June 30, the rise was approved as part of a financial report.
The total cost to the council is just over £1 million, an increase from the £960,000 estimated in February.
Introducing the financial reports, Cllr Imogen Shepherd-Dubey, the executive member for finance, said they mostly referred to the previous financial year.
“We do need to take note of items that are carried forward from the previous administration, and we cannot change the past on some of the stuff.”
Council leader Cllr Clive Jones wanted confirmation that the general fund balances would be £9million rather than the expected £10 million, which Cllr Shepherd-Dubey confirmed.
And Cllr Shepherd-Dubey said that there were some “carry forwards” in the financial reports as the projects are in progress.
“We would lose the benefits of that work if we were to cancel them now,” she explained, adding there would be a reduction in the council’s capital programme budget. Obviously it’s some money that’s coming, that’s not being spent.”
The council would use some contributions from developers to help fund disabled accommodation projects in this financial year.
Cllr Prue Bray then warned that the borough was running out of secondary school places.
“We need to move money to create the places in our schools,” she said.
She also warned there were some errors in the report’s use of policy numbers. As the report was not the final version, it can be fixed, but Cllr Bray asked for this to be noted in the approved report.
“I don’t anticipate any major problems,” she said, “I just think we need to be confident that we’ve understood what’s going on.”
Summing up the report before the vote, Cllr Shepherd-Dubey said: “What we have here are the things we felt that needed to go ahead, such as building a SEND school, learning disability accommodation, and things that we have to do as a council and can’t stop. A lot of this is ring fenced or housing projects.”
