The financial crisis facing RBWM is no secret. The numbers are bad, and rapidly getting worse. The Medium Term Financial Plan published with the papers for Budget Cabinet project that annual debt interest will rise from £13.5m (7.3% of the total budget) this year to £39.9m (15.7% of the total budget) over the next 5 years. We’ll need to borrow an additional annual amount rising from £49m to £104m over the same period. That’s an astonishing £315m extra debt over and above the £250m we already owe. RBWM debt matters, because it is RBWM Council Tax rises waiting to happen.
The Liberal Democrat RBWM administration would like everyone to think that none of this is their fault or responsibility. That it is everyone’s fault except theirs. But they share the blame now after three years in power. Yes, they inherited an already bad situation from the last (Conservative) administration. Yes the (Labour) government is now redistributing a large amount of RBWM grant income away from the area to other parts of the country. But has the current (Liberal) administration done all they can to fix the financial mess? No, and many choices made over the last three years have made things substantially worse. Some of the most significant examples are:
- Adult Social Care
Theresa Grant, who has a national reputation for turning around councils facing significant challenges, was called in to advise RBWM in 2023. She said it is both possible and necessary to “Turn off the Tap” on statutory spending in Adult Services. Since then the administration have done the opposite, making no attempt to tackle this area of spending – more than half the RBWM budget. Instead they call it ‘Statutory Spending’ (a misnomer – the law does not tell us how much to spend, as explained by our own Executive Director of Adult Care)
- Windsor Yards – in my opinion more than £10m loss to RBWM
In April 2025, Cabinet approved the sale of the Windsor Yards freehold. The sale price agreed was linked to a formal valuation carried out by CBRE, however the valuation was based on the rental income generated by the site and inexplicably took no account of the planning gain. The developers benefited from the uplift from the consented planning application but RBWM did not.
- Home Park – £450k/year loss to RBWM (about £10m considered as net present value)
RBWM gave up the income from the King Edward VII car park to the Crown Estate on the basis of undisclosed legal advice that we did not have a basis for contesting any potential revocation of the lease/license. Many councillors from across the political spectrum thought this decision was worthy of scrutiny. Unfortunately, the unprecedented cross-party formal call for scrutiny was blocked.
- St Edmund’s House – in my opinion £2m+ loss to RBWM
Instead of a simple scheme to convert Sienna Court to temporary accommodation, RBWM chose to re-purpose the 14 unit new-build development off Ray Mill Road West. Unfortunately the overheads of managing and maintaining such a small development were underestimated. The main cost to RBWM was the loss of the ‘new build premium’ that those properties would have generated had they been sold. The funds from a sale could have paid for the conversion of Sienna Court which instead continues to sit empty, falling into further dilapidation and eroding the £9m purchase cost still further.
The situation is desperate. All councillors need to work together collaboratively. with a focus on averting financial disaster. One of our early acts as councillors, we voted overwhelmingly to “take responsibility for ensuring this Council does all it can to achieve financial sustainability”. This is not the time to bunker down and block scrutiny and transparency at every opportunity.