By Cllr Stephen Conway
I wish all readers a happy and successful 2024.
Let me give you a sense of what your borough council will be doing in the coming year.
We are currently in the midst of our preparations for the council’s budget, which sets out our spending and how we are to pay for it.
Every year, setting a balanced budget involves difficult choices, but this year we face a particular challenge due to continuing inflation in the cost of providing services. The headline inflation rate has now fallen, but the government’s decision to increase the minimum wage, while a welcome boost to those on low incomes, inevitably adds to the council’s costs.
At the same time, the need for complex (and expensive) support in children’s and adult services continues to grow, despite the council’s efforts to contain costs.
We reckon that inflation and rising demand for our services will add about £24 million to our costs this coming year. To find that extra sum – in new income or new savings – will be a major challenge.
The government has given us a paltry £0.67 million additional money to help deliver our services, so we have to rely on our own efforts.
Daunting though the challenge may seem, I remain confident that we will rise to it and produce a balanced budget in February. We have shown over the last 20 months since taking control of Wokingham Borough Council that we do not run away from taking tough decisions in the public interest.
Those tough decisions have ensured that the council is in a better financial position than it would have been if we had not taken them.
We will continue, as we have done over the last 20 months, to focus our limited resources on helping those who need help most. That priority becomes even more important as the government is apparently intent on ending the Household Support Fund, which has been a lifeline for many individuals and families experiencing financial hardship.
We will continue to work with our charitable and voluntary sector partners in the Hardship Alliance to the deliver what support we can to those in need.
Partnership working will be a key feature of the coming year, just as it was of the last. The days when the council could do everything on its own have gone; we now need to work productively, in a sprit of true partnership, with many public and private bodies, if the interests of the residents of the borough are to be served.
I will be doing all I can to nurture and develop the council’s relationships with its external partners.
We will continue, as an administration, to prioritise providing school places for all of the borough’s children, whose life-chances depend on receiving a good education.
This again requires a commitment to working in partnership, as academy trusts now determine how many pupils they want to admit to their schools; the council must negotiate with the trusts to meet its obligation to ensure that every child in the borough receives a place at a suitable school.
Another major commitment in the year ahead is to continue our work in addressing the climate emergency.
We intend to include bold new sustainability measures in the new local plan that sets the planning framework for the next 15 years. We will proceed with our planting of new woodlands, especially the Covid Memorial Wood in Barkham, and with the new solar farm, also in Barkham, which will save the council money on its electricity bills, as well as generate extra income.
And we will bring to completion the work begun on drawing up a jointly-authored community vision, produced by the voluntary and charitable sector, business, the Youth Council, faith groups, health providers, educators, and the council, which will form the basis of the council’s own strategy from 2024.
There is much more I could tell you about what we hope to achieve in the year ahead, but I hope these examples indicate our continued determination to make the borough an even better place to live and work.
Cllr Stephen Conway is the leader of Wokingham Borough Council and ward member for Twyford
