Swindon Borough Council preparing for 'most difficult budget ever'
The council is preparing to fill an £18.9m budget gap for 2025/26.
Swindon Borough Councillors are preparing to set the council's most difficult budget ever - as it tried to fill an £18.9m budget gap for 2025/26.
A new budget must be put to councillors, and agreed, in February, so it can be in place April 1.
Cabinet member for finance, Councillor Kevin Smalls says the council is facing "an extremely serious financial position".
Councillor Kevin Small said: ”The council is facing an extremely serious financial position and, whilst there has been some improvement in the forecast for the current year, the gap remains very challenging at £7.6m and there remains a significant budget gap for 2025/26, currently estimated at £18.9m.”
That means the council is desperately trying to find savings in this year’s spending to avoid o projected overspend of nearly £8m, and it cannot reconcile the figures for next year’s budget which has a huge spending gap of just under £19m.
To ease matters, but also to complicate matters, officers and cabinet members will not know how much money the council is getting from the government until just before Christmas.
Cllr Small said: “The grant settlement used to be about 50 per cent of the revenue budget over a decade ago and now it’s down to just four per cent. We expect to learn the final settlement on December 19th, so we’ll be working over the Christmas break to see how it affects what we’ve done already.”
There is a possibility that there is good news for the council, Cllr Small said: “There were a number of items announced in October’s budget with more money for local government. If we apply the usual formula that Swindon receives 0.33 per cent, then we could see that settlement increased by £8m or£9m.”
Cllr Small also said the council was contemplating asking the government for permission for Exception Financial Support. He said: “You don’t get any more money, but it’s like applying for permission for an overdraft. It allows you to use either capital receipts or borrowing for revenue spending, which is normally not allowed.”
Chairman of the council’s Scrutiny Committee Councillor Dale Heenan asked Cllr Small whether he was thinking about raising council tax higher than the 4.99 per cent cap set by the government. Such a move is possible but would need approval in a referendum of residents.
Councillor Small said: “We are only talking to the government about extraordinary financial support.”
Labour councillor Mike Davies said: “The current budget is £180m something and it’s going up by about £30m. Are we offering the same services as we do now?”