Now is the time to reboot the council

We start this new year with a consultation running on council revenue budgets. We should welcome this innovation. Never have the residents of RBWM been asked for their opinion about what we should be spending money on.

But the reason for this new era is that we must save around £8m from our revenue budgets in the next financial year and then we will need to save the same amount again over the following few years.

But to be frank there is little left to cut after this and many years of ‘transformation’ and the chance of quick returns on fire sales of land and buildings is diminished in the current climate, options are running out.

We have benefited from historically low council tax increases over the years while the cost of everything went up, hoping to cover this shortfall with the returns from development investments and outsourcing.

But these planned returns aren’t coming in as fast as we now need and there little else to squeeze value out of.

As a council that gains most of its revenue from council tax, we all now know that this needs to rise to maintain services at anything near to acceptable levels.

The thing is that we can’t just add to council tax to meet this new harsher world as it is capped at 2 per cent max (Adult social care precept is at 3 per cent but can only be used for that).

The cap is set by the Government.

The Conservative administration have stated that they know we need to raise council tax above this cap and are actively lobbying Government to remove or adjust the cap.

However, there is another way to increase council tax above this cap and that is by asking you, the residents, to vote in a referendum.

A binary choice – to raise over the cap or not to.

I put this to the full council on October 14 but so far it hasn’t been taken up as an option.

Due to the timelines to hold a referendum being long this it would affect the 22/23 budget and not this year but would give a clear mandate to either cut services to keep tax low or to increase it to maintain services.

There isn’t much left of the 2019 Conservative manifesto pledges now so a re-boot makes sense.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the medium term financial plans are set at raising council tax by 2 per cent, the maximum allowed, year on year anyway but with this we still need more cuts.

I am sure that most councillors, regardless of political allegiances, would get behind whatever the residents decide and given that the alternative is more cuts in services with capped rises anyway, I believe residents will appreciate being treated as intelligent people and given a choice.

Regardless of the outcome I would respect your voice. We will shortly be launching a petition to request a referendum. We hope you can support this petition and have your voice heard.

Cllr NEIL KNOWLES OWRA, Old Windsor