Wokingham borough council facing 'challenging times'

A huge £20 million will have to be saved in coming years to reduce Wokingham Borough Council’s (WBC) overspend, the authority has announced.

WBC overspent by £1.83m for the last financial year, with the largest amount spent on children’s services and adult social care.

The authority said it has faced funding problems, inflation, interest rates and workforce shortages. But the overspend was lower than some predictions – which reached a peak of £3.6m last year.

An executive report indicates that the authority will need to make savings of around £20m in the next three years, which the executive will have to take into consideration when making key decisions.

Members of the council’s executive discussed the report at a meeting on Thursday, July 18.

Council leader Stephen Conway said: “These are challenging times and these kinds of overspends I’m afraid are common across the country.”

Children’s services continue to cost the council big sums – with an overspend of £2.55 million. Executive member for the department, Cllr Prue Bray, said they’ve faced an overspend since 2017.

Cllr Conway continued: “I think we are doing as well as one could do, and we are trying to address the core causes of the roots of this problem as best we can.

Councils across Berkshire have announced similar budget overspends in the past week – with Bracknell Forest Council’s at £2.5m, and Slough on course for a whopping £32 million overspend.

Cllr Sheperd-DuBey thanked officers for their efforts in cutting costs so far – but warned that the authority faced ‘another difficult year’ ahead.