Wiltshire Council working hard to reduce overspend

Wiltshire Council has provided its second formal update of the 2024/25 financial year, which shows its previously forecasted overspending has reduced significantly.

The council has published its second-quarter revenue and capital monitoring positions, which informs on its financial forecasts for the year. The report was presented at the Cabinet meeting on 19 November.

At the end of the first quarter there was a forecast overspend for the year of around £8.2m. However, the quarter two forecasted position, which is based on information known up to 30 September 2024, is now at around £861k. This is a forecast for the full year and the amount will fluctuate throughout the year with the council confident it will be on budget at the end of 2024/25, as it is every year, without the need to dip into its reserves.

Much of the forecasted overspend was due to continued challenges in social care that authorities across the country are experiencing, particularly adult services – with increased demand and the increasing cost of care packages, particularly for cases that are complex. There also continues to be challenges related to SEND transport. However, since the first quarter, the area of adult services is now forecast to overspend around £1.6m less than the previous quarter – with the current total at £6.2m. To manage this, the council put in place a number of cost mitigation actions through spend reviews and additional actions to bring the forecasted figure down.

Across the organisation the council has put in a number of measures, including the management of vacancies to reduce the cost of staffing, and challenging and halting non-essential and discretionary spend wherever possible. This shows a commitment to robustly manage the financial position for the council in all its business, as one council.

One of the other national challenges the council has faced was the uncertainty of the annual national pay award for local authority staff. This has now been agreed nationally and will ensure the council can plan with more certainty. Inflation also continues to be unpredictable and has not reduced in line with the Bank of England forecasts, but the council continues to manage this pressure.

Despite the forecasted overspend, the council has however seen positive financial results for a number of its services, including increased income for leisure services, and income generated from the council’s garden waste collection has been strong, which is likely to cover the cost of delivering this non-statutory service.

Cllr Nick Botterill, Cabinet Member for Finance, said: “This continues to be a challenging and somewhat unpredictable time for local authority finances; however, our preventative way of working puts us in a stronger position than most and we are well equipped to mitigate any problems. Therefore, we are confident that we will be on budget at the end of the financial year without the need to use any of our reserves.

“Like councils across the country, areas such as adult social care continue to put pressures on finances, but we are focussed as ever on being a self-sustaining authority that lives within its means, and we’ve put measures in place that have already seen our forecast significantly improve.

“We remain ambitious, and we continue to invest in other key services such as our roads, with our capital programme focussed on improving the infrastructure of our county. So that means investment in schools, highways, council house building and our leisure services – including delivering a brand-new leisure centre for our county town.”

As of the end of the second quarter, the council has already achieved almost 43% of its £19.6m saving targets of the year, amounting to around £8.4m. According to the current forecast, around £2.8m of the savings target is not expected to be delivered by the financial year’s end and this will continue to be reviewed, with action taken where necessary.

The council has taken a long-term strategic approach to its budget, which included effectively setting the next three years’ budgets in February, and this means it is in a stronger position to respond positively to any unexpected issues

An update has also been heard on the council’s capital programme, with that currently sitting at around £226.35m, down from the £255.6m figure originally agreed at Full Council in February. As is typical with capital-funded projects due to their complexity and scale, timelines shift and money is moved to future years where appropriate. Some of the capital spend this financial year will be on projects include:

• Building and refurbishing council houses
• Structural maintenance and bridges
• Trowbridge and Salisbury Future High Streets
• Highways investment plan
• Property carbon reduction programme
• Investment in leisure centres
• Preparatory work for the Trowbridge Leisure Centre project

Wiltshire Council recently carried out some engagement with local residents to get their opinions on what the council should prioritise its 2025/26 spending on. A series of interactive drop-in events took place at libraries in Salisbury, Chippenham and Trowbridge, which saw around 140 people take part. People were asked to spread eight tokens across 10 boxes that represented a Wiltshire Council service to inform what they thought the council should prioritise its spending on. In addition, 1,699 people took part in an online version of the exercise. It is important for the council to actively engage with the public on its services and the results of this will be included in the budget reports.

Commenting on the recent budget engagement, Cllr Botterill said: “Thanks to everyone for taking the time out to give us their thoughts at our events and via the online survey. Taking into account the in-person and online engagement we were nearly at 1,900 responses, which is very encouraging. The feedback provides a useful snapshot of what people think and that type of insight will help to inform our future plans.”