THE LIBERAL Democrats are looking ahead to the council’s budget, following an executive meeting last week.
Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Imogen Shepherd-DuBey, Lib Dem lead for finance, said that she was looking for any insight into how the pandemic has hit the borough council’s funds.
“They still haven’t fully reported on the cost of covid,” she said. “If there was any indication that it was not expensive, I would be asking ‘why not’,” she said. “If there was any time to be spending, it should have been in lockdown.”
It comes as Cllr John Kaiser, the executive member for finance at the borough council, ran through the capital monitoring report and the
revenue budget monitoring report at Thursday night’s meeting.
At the time, he said that rising inflation would see a greater demand on council services, despite limited resources.
“It’s important every penny we spend has a maximum impact,” he said. “Especially during this post-covid recovery phase.”
He said that the revenue budget was mostly on course, with an overspend of £523,000, for the current financial year. Of this, £398,000 was the cost of covid-related activities. This meant, Cllr Gregor Murray said, the council was 0.35% overbudget.
The council was also looking to save £55 million over the next financial year, on top of the £30 million the council had saved in the last six years.
Cllr Shepherd-DuBey said that there are “huge financial elephants” coming down the road towards the borough council, including the predicted cost of the Government’s adult social care reform.
The council’s health executive has estimated this will be at least £20 million per year.
Which the Lib Dems said could work out at a £500 cost per home.
“The only option the council would have is to pass it onto taxpayers,” said Cllr Shepherd-DuBey. “That’s huge, especially when a lot of people are struggling.
“It shows that central Government really have not thought it through — this doesn’t scream fiscally responsible.”
Cllr Clive Jones, leader of the Wokingham Liberal Democrats, said that he is concerned that council building projects may be being “pushed down the road”.
He was responding to the capital programme.
“There’s a worry that things are being taken out of the 2022/23 programme and put into the 2023/24 one,” he said.
Cllr Shepherd-DuBey said that an issue with this, is that the cost of building has risen significantly.
