Wokingham council faces predicted £3.6m overspend

Wokingham Borough Council was warned in October that it could be effectively bankrupt within a few years

A council warned it was at risk of effectively going bankrupt has been predicted to spend £3.6m more than it planned to this year.

Berkshire's Wokingham Borough Council had already been told it needed to find savings of £15m in its budget for next year.

A councillor warned in October that the authority risked going effectively bankrupt "in the next couple of years" if it did not get its finances under control.

Now documents predict the council will end the current financial year exceeding its budget, with almost half the overspend going towards home to school transport.

The report says the overspend was originally £11m, but mitigating actions have brought it down to £3.6m.

Councils across Britain are facing a challenging financial situation, with several, including Slough and Woking, already having declared themselves bankrupt, the documents said.

Some £2.6m of the predicted overspend comes from Wokingham Borough Council’s children’s services department - and of that, £1.6m is for home to school transport.

This is because of an increase in children with special educational needs (SEN) requiring transport to specialist schools outside the borough, the council said, as well as the rising cost of transport.

It also said inflation – as measured by the retail price index – reached nearly 12% in 2023, far outstripping the council’s income from council tax and government grants.

The figures are included in a report on the council's financial position at the end of the third quarter of this financial year.