WOKINGHAM Borough Council, and its leader, Cllr Stephen Conway, has hit back at claims from MP Sir John Redwood that it has engaged in “wasteful spending”.
In a statement provided to Wokingham Today, it said: “Wokingham Borough Council receives the least general funding per head of population from the government of any unitary local authority and has had low government funding for many years – that is a simple fact.
“It is also a fact that if we were funded at the average per head of population, we would get approximately £30 million more each year – that is about £400 per household per year.”
Responding to Sir John’s suggestion that its campaign is “misleading”, it said: “All literature that is put out by Wokingham Borough Council is reviewed by our executive councillors, and is also checked and validated by our officers for accuracy.”
Blasting the campaign from the Liberal Democrat-controlled administration, Sir John said: “The Leader of the Opposition on the Council tells me the Council has £120 million in balances and reserves.
“I have myself argued for more money for the Borough’s social services, and was pleased to see a 73% uplift in this year’s grant.
“The government also approved money for two new Special Needs schools, and the Borough opened the new facility at Maiden Erlegh.
“The Borough received an additional £1.1 million funding grant this year as a further top up, and money from the social care discharge fund for hospital discharges.
“It receives a large grant for schools with a substantial uplift again this year.”
Wokingham Borough Council responded, saying: “ The borough council does have reasonable balances and reserves and that is one of the few reasons we are not facing imminent effective bankruptcy.
“But balances are for covering specific one-off projects. If they are used to cover ongoing spending gaps (to keep basic service going) they are depleted very quickly.
“That is one of the ways other councils have got themselves into serious trouble.
“The 73% uplift was actually only on one small element of our funding. Overall, our funding went up by just £1.8 million when our actual costs went up by about £21 million. Some £11 million of which was inflation alone.
“In terms of funding for schools, we remain the third lowest funded unitary council in the country per head of population.”
Sir John cited a recent independent report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) that showed Wokingham was in second place out of six authorities in Berkshire and Hampshire for grant per head for both Council services and education.
Wokingham Borough Council said: “Sir John is focussing on grant funding which misses the point as our main problem is paying for day-to-day services.
“In terms of the IFS report itself, it is not accurate to claim that Wokingham Borough (or any other local authority) gets more or less than it needs from the Government because the Government does not know what the costs are in relation to local needs are and makes no real attempt to base funding on them.
“The IFS report fails to understand that government funding allocations have never been based on an estimate of local needs but are instead based on a crude historic formula used to slice up the overall funding pie available to Local Governments.
“These formulas do not factor in vital issues such as the number of children with special education needs and the complexity of those needs and so bears no resemblance to the reality of spending pressures we face.”
Sir John also suggested that the Borough suppresses the figures for the numerous and substantial grants it receives from central government, it finds large sums to spend on bad choices.
He said: “It is planning to spend more than £5 million on needless and unhelpful changes to California Crossroads.
“It is planning to spend on a solar farm when it does not even have the necessary legal permit to access the grid to sell the power.
“It has also spent on closing or narrowing roads that make it more difficult to get to work.
“The Council is planning a large outlay on changing offices when cheaper and better options are available.”
In reply, Wokingham Borough Council suggested that Sir John is confusing ring-fenced capital funding (that can only be used for specific projects) with its ongoing shortfall in revenue funding which is used to pay for day-to-day services.
“The money for the Special Needs Schools cannot be used for anything else, and it reflects the dire situation that our Special Needs situation has been allowed to get into in the past.
“We need the schools to support our children and we are thankful that we have it, but it does not help other services, and this funding will only help us in the long term.
“In the case of California Crossroads, the money is from housing developers (known as Developer Contributions) in the area and is ring-fenced for road improvements. Again, it cannot be used to provide ongoing services.
“The Solar Panel project is a long-term investment that will bring environmental benefits as well as a net revenue gain. We have received strong assurances from National Grid that we will be able to connect and realise these benefits.
Sie John concluded by saying: “I will continue to make Wokingham’s case for fair funding, and am pleased with all the extra money we have been getting.
“The Council needs to set out an accurate account of just how much revenue and capital money it does receive.
“It also needs to stop spending it wastefully, and on projects that many do not support.”
Leader of the Council Cllr Stephen Conway said: “It is disappointing and worrying that the local MP has responded to our attempts to raise serious funding issues in this muddled and confusing way.
“He is mixing up one-off funding with ongoing financial pressure.
“It seems Sir John either genuinely does not understand how local government finance works – as he does not seem to know the difference between capital funding for one-off projects and ongoing revenue funding for our services – or he is deliberately trying to mislead our residents.
“However, there is still time for him to get behind our campaign and join us in standing up for a fair deal for local people.”
Wokingham Borough Council, and its leader, Cllr Stephen Conway, has hit back at claims from MP Sir John Redwood that it has engaged in “wasteful spending”.
In a statement provided to Wokingham Today, it said: “Wokingham Borough Council receives the least general funding per head of population from the government of any unitary local authority and has had low government funding for many years – that is a simple fact.
“It is also a fact that if we were funded at the average per head of population, we would get approximately £30 million more each year – that is about £400 per household per year.”
Responding to Sir John’s suggestion that its campaign is “misleading”, it said: “All literature that is put out by Wokingham Borough Council is reviewed by our executive councillors, and is also checked and validated by our officers for accuracy.”
Blasting the campaign from the Liberal Democrat-controlled administration, Sir John said: “The Leader of the Opposition on the Council tells me the Council has £120 million in balances and reserves.
“I have myself argued for more money for the Borough’s social services, and was pleased to see a 73% uplift in this year’s grant.
“The government also approved money for two new Special Needs schools, and the Borough opened the new facility at Maiden Erlegh.
“The Borough received an additional £1.1 million funding grant this year as a further top up, and money from the social care discharge fund for hospital discharges.
“It receives a large grant for schools with a substantial uplift again this year.”
Wokingham Borough Council responded, saying: “ The borough council does have reasonable balances and reserves and that is one of the few reasons we are not facing imminent effective bankruptcy.
“But balances are for covering specific one-off projects. If they are used to cover ongoing spending gaps (to keep basic service going) they are depleted very quickly.
“That is one of the ways other councils have got themselves into serious trouble.
“The 73% uplift was actually only on one small element of our funding. Overall, our funding went up by just £1.8 million when our actual costs went up by about £21 million. Some £11 million of which was inflation alone.
“In terms of funding for schools, we remain the third lowest funded unitary council in the country per head of population.”
Sir John cited a recent independent report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) that showed Wokingham was in second place out of six authorities in Berkshire and Hampshire for grant per head for both Council services and education.
Wokingham Borough Council said: “Sir John is focussing on grant funding which misses the point as our main problem is paying for day-to-day services.
“In terms of the IFS report itself, it is not accurate to claim that Wokingham Borough (or any other local authority) gets more or less than it needs from the Government because the Government does not know what the costs are in relation to local needs are and makes no real attempt to base funding on them.
“The IFS report fails to understand that government funding allocations have never been based on an estimate of local needs but are instead based on a crude historic formula used to slice up the overall funding pie available to Local Governments.
“These formulas do not factor in vital issues such as the number of children with special education needs and the complexity of those needs and so bears no resemblance to the reality of spending pressures we face.”
Sir John also suggested that the Borough suppresses the figures for the numerous and substantial grants it receives from central government, it finds large sums to spend on bad choices.
He said: “It is planning to spend more than £5 million on needless and unhelpful changes to California Crossroads.
“It is planning to spend on a solar farm when it does not even have the necessary legal permit to access the grid to sell the power.
“It has also spent on closing or narrowing roads that make it more difficult to get to work.
“The Council is planning a large outlay on changing offices when cheaper and better options are available.”
In reply, Wokingham Borough Council suggested that Sir John is confusing ring-fenced capital funding (that can only be used for specific projects) with its ongoing shortfall in revenue funding which is used to pay for day-to-day services.
“The money for the Special Needs Schools cannot be used for anything else, and it reflects the dire situation that our Special Needs situation has been allowed to get into in the past.
“We need the schools to support our children and we are thankful that we have it, but it does not help other services, and this funding will only help us in the long term.
“In the case of California Crossroads, the money is from housing developers (known as Developer Contributions) in the area and is ring-fenced for road improvements. Again, it cannot be used to provide ongoing services.
“The Solar Panel project is a long-term investment that will bring environmental benefits as well as a net revenue gain. We have received strong assurances from National Grid that we will be able to connect and realise these benefits.
Sie John concluded by saying: “I will continue to make Wokingham’s case for fair funding, and am pleased with all the extra money we have been getting.
“The Council needs to set out an accurate account of just how much revenue and capital money it does receive.
“It also needs to stop spending it wastefully, and on projects that many do not support.”
Leader of the Council Cllr Stephen Conway said: “It is disappointing and worrying that the local MP has responded to our attempts to raise serious funding issues in this muddled and confusing way.
“He is mixing up one-off funding with ongoing financial pressure.
“It seems Sir John either genuinely does not understand how local government finance works – as he does not seem to know the difference between capital funding for one-off projects and ongoing revenue funding for our services – or he is deliberately trying to mislead our residents.
“However, there is still time for him to get behind our campaign and join us in standing up for a fair deal for local people.”
