I have come to this conclusion after reading through recent budget speeches by Conservative leaders of Wokingham Borough Council. I have done this so you don’t have to.
In 2008 the late Frank Browne said Wokingham Borough is “the worst funded Unitary Authority in the country”. In 2009, David Lee, the new Conservative leader said Wokingham Borough continued to “be the worst funded authority in England”, words he repeated in 2010, 2011 and 2012. By 2013 there was a slight change of emphasis and Wokingham Borough was now “the lowest funded authority in England”, a form repeated in 2014.
By 2015 new Conservative leader, Keith Baker, had come up with his own twist by making the same point – twice; once at the start of his speech “In keeping with a long-standing tradition I am sure you will be familiar with the fact that Wokingham is the lowest funded authority in the country” and again at the end of the speech. Keith repeated the double-jab formula in 2016, concluding his speech with a jocular “Oh and did I tell you we are the lowest funded authority in the country?”
After a couple of years of failing to repeat the assertion (we had probably become the second worse funded) normal service was restored in 2019 by Julian McGhee-Sumner and admirably continued by John Halsall in 2020, 2021 and 2022 when we were “the worst funded authority”, received “the lowest funding of any unitary”, and we are the “lowest funded unitary”.
And do you know what? They were all right.
It is a surprise, then, that the current Conservative leadership, some of whom sat through almost every speech, have chosen to all but ignore a fundamental fact which their predecessors understood and were happy to make very, very clear to residents.
But the Conservatives are the past. What of the current administration?
Astonishingly, they seem to have failed to distinguish between temporary funding streams from the government and more stable streams.
In the run up to General Election year, Conservative Minister Michael Gove ensured that local authorities received additional temporary funding called a “Funding Floor”. This was designed to protect local authorities from sudden changes in the amount of cash they had. Amazingly, this extra funding for local councils came out of nowhere in the year before a general election and doubled in the general election year. This temporary pre-election bonus was worth £2.6 million to Wokingham in 2024.
Rather than treating this as a bonus, the Lib Dems seem to have assumed this would be an ongoing payment, hence their shock when it disappeared. I don’t know about you but when I receive a bonus at work, I do not count it as salary. Nor do I count the month after my bonus as a cut in my salary.
The fact is that in the basic lump sum grant to Wokingham Borough Council has increased by 2%. In addition, ring-fenced monies for social care, for support for those domestic abuse survivors and for the prevention of children going into care have all increased by between 15% and 25%.
The only component that was reduced was the temporary pre-general election bonus.
These minor details seems to have escaped the Wokingham Borough Council press releases. How strange. Like the Conservatives before them, the Lib Dems are happy to exploit their control of the Borough Council’s considerable media machine.
The new government is currently consulting on how to make local authority funding fairer. Next year’s settlement will be the first under the new, fairer regime. I am sure the officer–led contribution to this consultation will be far more serious than the playground economics offered by our two largest political parties.
Andy Croy is a Labour councillor for Norreys East ward of Wokingham Town Council.
