Budget for 2023/24 voted through despite scrutiny concerns

The Royal Borough’s budget was voted through at a meeting on Tuesday night – despite freshly expressed concerns over the police funding choice and risks posed to Family Hubs.

Several opposition councillors voiced fresh criticism about the decision to fund four extra police officers (costing £240,000) as opposed to rerouting this money into community wardens.

Conservative members stressed the need for police that can intervene, to crack down on e-scooters and parking on pavements – which ‘can’t be dealt with’ by PCSOs or community wardens.

Leader Andrew Johnson described the opposition attitude to this scheme as ‘wrong, wrong, wrong, weak, weak, weak.’

“People want to see more bobbies on the beat and that’s exactly what we’re going to give them,” he said.

Leader of the local independents, Cllr Lynne Jones, said that the decision had ‘no scrutiny and no transparency’.

She criticised the way the budget has been formed – the effect of attempting to use scrutiny panels and budget amendments to guide it.

“I cannot remember a time during [the past] 12 years that the Conservative administration responded to recommendations from scrutiny panels or accepted any proposed amendments,” she said.

“That speaks volumes as to the attitude of consecutive Conservative administrations. Unless you take notice and work with scrutiny, it's just a tick-box exercise.”

Before the vote on the budget, an amendment was proposed by West Windsor Residents’ Association councillors relating to a multitude of concerns in Windsor.

This was voted down, with members across the chamber saying it was ‘not the right way’ to go about making changes to a budget.

Leader of the Lib Dems, Cllr Simon Werner, said he ‘agreed’ with Conservatives on this – pushing back against criticisms from Cllr Johnson that the Lib Dems had ‘not bothered’ to offer any amendments at all.

Cllr Johnson had said the Lib Dems had provided ‘absolutely no figures, zero focus, zero vision’.

Cllr Werner lambasted the council’s ‘borrowing bug’ and ‘complete failure to keep a lid on borrowing’.

He criticised the administration for not charging CIL (community infrastructure levy) in Maidenhead town centre – saying the council is ‘throwing away’ £30million.

Another criticism was spending ‘half a million pounds more’ for fewer bin collections, which Cllr Werner described as one of several ‘barmy, stupid, avoidable mistakes.’

Cllr Werner also questioned the amount of money to be made from the golf course land.

“The council really believes the golf course sell-off will raise the vast majority of the money to pay off the debt,” he said.

He described this as ‘cloud cuckoo land’ and said the council could be overestimating by ‘as much as £100million.’

“If this is entirely fictional, how much more of [the budget] is fictional?” he said.

Though the administration has stressed its commitment to adult social care and getting people out of care homes where possible, Cllr Catherine del Campo (Lib Dem, Furze Platt) raised concerns about this.

She feared people might ‘slip through the net’ if relying on visits from ‘overworked, under-resourced officers.’

“It’s laudable to want to keep people in their homes for as long as possible, but without the right support, there’s a danger those people risk becoming isolated and vulnerable,” she said.

Liberal Democrats also raised concerns about ‘empty’ and ‘collapsing’ car parks in the Borough they feel are not being well-managed.

In closing, Cllr David Hilton, lead member for finance, said he ‘understood the desire’ to spend more on Family Hubs, but that over the past four years the proportion of budget spent on adults and children’s care has risen from 65 per cent to 75 per cent.

“That clearly is unsustainable, so there is a very small reduction in Family Hubs,” he said.

“I heard the budget damned earlier because we had savings of £10.9million – but no mention was made of the £10.5million of growth funds we were putting into the budget.

“The opposition are probably just irritated that this [budget] meets so many of our residents’ priorities.”

Voting along party lines, the budget was approved with 20 votes for and 15 against.