RBWM - Fixing the Mess and Moving Forward

The Partnership Cabinet of Liberal Democrat and Independent members have approved the proposed 2025/26 RBWM budget for consideration at Full Council.

This budget represents the next stage in our stated intention to fix the mess, restore the financial stability of RBWM - the top priority in our Council Plan - and make the borough cleaner, greener and safer for all residents to enjoy.

The budget addresses a number of problems that the current council have inherited:

• We had no staff to check up on contractors doing their job well – we have put those inspectors and contract managers in place.
• The Conservatives previously removed many of the maintenance budgets so that our playgrounds, street lights and road signs have had no money spent on them recently. Over the five years since this was done, we have seen a slow deterioration of these important assets. We have started the process of putting these maintenance budgets back.
• Children’s services have experienced huge financial pressures placing children with private care providers - now we have a fantastic initiative to have a brand new in-house children’s home in the borough.
• Adult services management was based on a spreadsheet and paper system which meant invoicing was done manually and there was no way to accurately report or forecast. We now have a new system which will carry out these vital jobs so we can more confidently predict our forecasts, and take control of the massive aged debt that we have inherited.
• We are continuing to reduce reliance on expensive agency staff in adult social care by improving our recruitment and retention offering for permanent staff. 

With government giving their agreement to our request for exceptional financial support of £103m, this draw down facility gives us the one-year balanced budget that allows us to move forward with our financial improvement and sustainability plan, including transformation, independently. Government confirmed our plan was sound and the agreement strongly validates the hard work of this administration in preparing a robust budget and implementing improvements to governance, providing assurance over the control of spending that was notably absent from previous administrations.

The reality is that the Conservatives didn't even know that they had lost control as they had no idea what the financial position was. They thought they had £10m in reserves - a very low reserve level in itself. It turned out that they had minus £20 million in reserves. This is the definition of losing control. This administration has spent two years shining a light on the finances, discovering the many mistakes, bad assumptions, and places where there were no processes at all. The Conservatives lost control of the finances more than 10 years ago; we are taking back control of them.

For the first time, the council has a clear and approved plan for paying off all the council’s debt by putting aside the correct amount each year for the payment of all the debts, and by using the sale of assets to speed it up. In contrast the Conservative plans for paying back debt were based on fantasy and included, as CIPFA said, “wildly optimistic” amounts of income from the sale of assets in Maidenhead which were never going to be met. We have a way to pay down all the debt, the Conservatives didn't.

The Partnership Cabinet will continue to work closely with officers to drive the improvements the Council desperately needs. We are strengthening the council from the ground up and in particular carefully note the recommendations from the detailed independent reviews that have been undertaken from CIPFA, our auditors Grant Thornton and our internal audit service. Progress with implementing will be tracked and reported to residents regularly in our spirit of openness and transparency.

Windsor & Maidenhead Liberal Democrats 

27th February 2025

For additional commentary, please see this article:

RBWM Systems, Processes and the CIPFA 2020 Review - a commentary - Windsor Liberal Democrats