A TWO PART DECISION

On Monday, 4th March, the council considered the second part of the 2024/25 budget. The first, in February, focused on budget savings, the housing revenue account, and the capital programme. The second with the treatment of council debt, exceptional financial support, and council tax.

I could not attend the second meeting, I was with a critically-ill family member in hospital. However, my colleague Will Forster, Deputy Leader, kindly adapted my intended speech at very short notice, and Council Leader, Ann-Marie Barker, delivered a formidable summing-up. Other Lib Dem colleagues including Liam Lyons, Ellen Nicholson, Adam Kirby, Peter Graves, and Swati Mukherjee did a fantastic job in the debate.

RIGHTING WRONGS

It was a difficult budget. Perhaps one of the most difficult set by any council. Those that voted to support it did the right thing. Those that did not did precisely the wrong thing because it was, more than anything, an opportunity right the wrongs of the past.

THE JOURNEY

When I introduce myself as finance portfolio holder for Woking Borough Council, the expression I hear most frequently is poisoned chalice. I don’t challenge the term; it comes from a good place. However, the definition of a poisoned chalice is something that seems attractive at first but is found to be unpleasant. Three years ago, I was a resident, and I knew then what was in the chalice.

I was not alone. I met with many who had been expressing concerns for years. They includes those who are councillors today and many who are not. I was also introduced to residents we warmly refer to as armchair auditors. Financially astute professionals, raising concerns, freedom of information requests, even legal challenges. They still write to me today and they ask the most difficult questions. Their cause was never partisan, it was about financial responsibility.

THE DIGGING

We spent our evenings and weekends poring over Thameswey accounts, and reports such as the Gifty Edila report that revealed a culture of secrecy, and reckless risk management. We discovered details of an £11 million loan to a private school, and a £250 million loan offered to a developer with no discernible assets. The council had the third largest borrowing in the UK, the largest relative to its size. Council owned companies had made losses year after year. We feared that council leadership was walking blindly into a financial catastrophe. We also learned what happened to those who challenged. A former leader denied the chair of overview and scrutiny the opportunity to speak at an executive meeting and was found to have breached the code of conduct in a culture that was reported as ‘toxic’.

I was elected in 2021. In opposition we co-ordinated questions across standards and audit, overview and scrutiny, and in full council. We challenged an additional £500 million capital financing requirement, we refused to support a further £58 million for buying the red car park, and we secured a motion for an independent financial review which revealed the perilous financial position of council-owned companies. Yet we were still told that the council was financially strong.

RESIDENTS DECIDE

We took the issue directly to residents and campaigned on responsible finances. We were accused of scaremongering, but residents disagreed. They gave us leadership of the council, the mandate to uncover the truth and to address it. 

We quickly confirmed the dire finances, we followed with a spending review, and cost controls, and we made it clear that a section-114 was likely. Then we fully engaged with commissioners during a non-statutory assurance review and met the now inevitable government intervention, and the section-114 with an extensive improvement and recovery plan. 

It is fitting to acknowledge all those councillors and residents that have raised concerns in the past. I am however most indebted to the corporate leadership team, senior officers, my colleagues on the executive, and not least Cllr Ann-Marie Barker for stepping up to deal with the chalice in full knowledge of what it contained. 

As the Latin maxim goes. Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.

THE MORAL IMPERATIVE

A robust budget is not just a legal responsibility, it is a moral imperative. We are stewards, not owners of the world we live in. We have inherited from those who came before us, and we have obligations to those who come after us. 

This budget is the legacy of those that voted for it. The first true and legal budget in a decade. It addresses a decade of weak leadership, and avoided difficult decisions. It delivers significant savings yet mitigates their worst impact. It secures exceptional financial support, has identified transformational funding, initiated community solutions, and will quadruple investment in social housing. 

No one is pretending there is no cost or that there isn’t more work to do but it bestows the very thing we have been denied in our own awful inheritance. 

Full and democratic expression.

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