Balancing our budget for 2025/26

Background

As part of our annual budget setting cycle, we undertake a consultation with residents to ensure all voices across the district are listened to.

Councils across the country continue to face unprecedented financial pressures, and West Berkshire Council is no exception. Post the COVID pandemic, Councils including West Berkshire have experienced a high inflation environment, resulting in increasing costs and rising demand on our social services supporting our most vulnerable residents.

Councils are required by law to deliver a balanced budget. Where a Council is unable to set a balanced budget, exceptional financial support is sought from central government. Exceptional financial support involves an appointed set of external commissioners scrutinising the Council's finances, and if necessary, agreeing a recovery programme. West Berkshire Council is currently working through a range of different options to produce a balanced budget for financial year 2025/26. To ensure that we fully understand the views and concerns of residents we are consulting on some of the proposals.

Please watch this short video about our spending plans for 2025/26 from Councillor Jeff Brooks:
 

Speaking about the budget consultation, Councillor Iain Cottingham, Portfolio Holder for Finance and Resources, said:

"Decisions to consult on changes to the services that you receive are never a pleasant experience for all concerned. It is no secret that local government finances are under severe pressure and here in West Berkshire we are in the same boat as many other councils across the country. This is due to the double whammy of higher unit costs and increasing demand for the services we provide to West Berkshire residents. However, the bottom line is, we have legal obligation to deliver a balanced budget in the next financial year (2025/26) whilst continuing to protect the most vulnerable in our community.

"We have proposed a number of changes to our services for the next financial year (2025/26) and this consultation is your chance to have your say on them. We won't make any decisions until we have considered the results of the consultation and how these may affect you."

2024/25 budget position

Forecasts earlier in 2024/25 showed that we would overspend by £9.5 million by the end of March 2025. This is because we are experiencing a higher demand for our services and are seeing an increase in the complexity of social care support required. The high inflation rates have made it more expensive for us to provide services and support local residents and businesses.

Through taking the following actions, we have already reduced the overspend:

• reviewed all recruitment activity to fill only the most critical vacancies this year
• reviewed all spending and approved only that which relates to statutory services, or which are otherwise unavoidable
• reduced the number of agency workers we employed
• worked with staff to look at new ways to save money, and brought forward transformation projects to save money earlier than planned

Work is continuing to balance the budget for 2024/25, and we are sure that we will be on track to do this by the end of March 2025. The latest overspend forecast for Quarter 2 is approximately £2.2 million.
 

2025/26 budget position

In 2025/26, the expectation is that planned costs will continue to be more than our funding, meaning that we will have to find further savings or income generation to set a balanced budget. The table below sets out the current 2025/26 savings requirement. This figure is based on the assumption that Council Tax increases by 4.99% overall in line with previous government referendum limits.

Our 2025/26 financial position is:

To fill the remaining gap, we have a range of options available, including changing the way we provide services, making internal savings, for example: re-tendering contracts for better value for money, reducing overheads, restructuring, spending reserve funds, and introducing new charges or increasing existing charges for some services. All savings will be included in the report being considered at the Executive and Full Council meetings being held in February 2025.

Through extensive internal discussions and meetings with our service providers, we've identified nine saving and income generating proposals, details for which you can find below.
 
We have discounted using our reserve fund, as it is a one-off fund, and is already forecast to reduce below the minimum level required by the Chief Financial Officer. As part of the budget process, we are proposing to increase the General Fund reserve to provide greater financial resilience.
 

You can find out more about where our money comes from and how its spent online.

Why we want your views

Before making any decisions on these proposals, it's important that we hear the views of our residents, communities, and other interested parties to understand how they might be affected by them, and how any potential negative effects of these proposals could be reduced, should they go ahead.

How to take part

Please note that you will not be able to access the online surveys on Saturday, 23 November for approximately 4 hours from 3pm to 7pm, due to scheduled maintenance by our survey software provider.

To read more about a proposal, find out how to take part and who to contact if you have any questions, please click on a link below. There might be some proposals that you're more interested in than others, but if you have the time, please consider each proposal. 

We're also asking residents, communities, and partner organisations where they think we should focus our spending, and their views on increasing fees and charges by 5% - the link to this survey is also in the table below:

Please let us have your comments by midnight on Monday, 23 December 2024.

What happens next

All feedback will be analysed by the service, and a recommendation made to elected Members as part of the budget papers for 2025/26 at the Executive meeting on Thursday, 13 February 2025. A final decision whether to proceed with the proposal will then be made by elected Members at the meeting of Full Council on Thursday, 27 February 2025.

The recommendations will also be reviewed and discussed by members of the Scrutiny Commission on Tuesday, 11 February 2025.

All meetings will be open to the public, and residents can attend either in person at the Market Street Offices or online. If you'd like to ask a West Berkshire Councillor a question at a public meeting, find out what can and can't be asked, and how to submit your question here.