'Only spend if essential', says council boss

Staff at Swindon Borough Council have been warned only to spend money if it is essential to the work of the authority.

A message from the council’s chief executive officer Sam Mowbray, to staff, seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, said the council is predicting a £10m overspend on its revenue budget – its day-to-day spending on services – by the end of the financial year.

That’s an increase on the £9.1m reported at the September cabinet meeting.

Ms Mowbray’s message said: “The council’s financial position is extremely challenging, with a forecast overspend on the general fund for this year."

She added: “It’s not an option to rely on reserves, so we must all take action now to reduce what we are spending.

“I cannot stress enough the difficulty  we are in financially.”

As a consequence, Ms Mowbray said there can be no relaxation on spending: “We need to reinforce existing spending controls and implement stricter in-year controls, which will be in place for the rest of the financial year when we will review again.”

The message to staff is in line with the council’s external messaging about its financial position.

Most of the potential overspend would be from the adults and children’s services departments.

At September’s cabinet meeting the member for finance, councillor Kevin Small presented a report which said adults’ services were predicting a £2.46m over-run while children’s services were projected to go £4.34m over its £67.8m budget for the year.

Together adults’ and children’s services budget make up nearly 85% of the budget of £178,860,000 for this financial year.

Such services are a statutory duty for local authorities.