By Cllr Imogen Shepherd-DuBey
After having the Liberal Democrats leading Wokingham Borough Council for one year, we were able to deliver the council’s services within the budget we inherited and even had a small amount left over.
So, unlike some councils nearby, the council is still solvent and able to manage its own affairs.
This is despite rocketing inflation and finding many things that were not budgeted for were among the problems we have been able manage.
I cannot say it has been easy and we can only ask our residents to bear with us on some of the issues that might affect them.
We have very few avenues to make savings and increase revenue and it sometimes means having to make decisions that we don’t like very much and it perhaps means we have to curtail ambitions and put off projects until funding can be found.
However, some things had to be supported immediately, such as finding funding for bus services that had no budget or other means of supporting themselves but were crucially the only public transport available in many areas of Wokingham Borough.
Again, realising that many of our low-income residents were in trouble, we were also able to find £250,000 to build schemes to support them.
These are just a couple of examples, but show that we will always prioritise our most vulnerable residents first.
Some of our decisions are more about survival and some are about making long-term savings in the cost of our services.
This year is going to be even more of a challenge as the rising costs of running our services are still with us.
Our Council Tax charges are capped way below inflation and national government has not giving us any more funding to cover our necessary services, so like our residents, we are being squeezed and squeezed.
In addition, later this year we are expecting to be asked to cover more of the costs of adult social care and there is unlikely to be enough central government funding to cover it. I am unsure how our current government is planning to pay for all of the things that it has been promising people, but we will do our best to make it work with what we have.
We are exploring new ideas, such as sponsorship of Council services, ensuring that we are claiming all of the grants that we are eligible for or entitled to and streamlining the services that we do deliver.
Reducing costs and finding new revenue streams is the only way forward for us, but if we are to continue emptying the bins, delivering library services, getting children to school, repairing roads, maintaining our parks among many things, it is what we must do.
Cllr Imogen Sheherd-DuBey is the executive member for finance on Wokingham Borough Council and ward member for Emmbrook
