The extent of the financial and management mess at Labour-run Slough council is revealed in a scathing report by a team of government commissioners sent in to run the authority after it declared de facto bankruptcy a year ago. He is calling on ministers to give special powers to commissioners to effectively rebuild “the core elements of local government” in an authority he says lacks top-level leadership, faces a major staffing crisis and struggles to deliver what he calls “extremely fragile” services. The council has been asked to offload hundreds of millions of pounds worth of assets to fund its turnaround plan, including its stock of around 6,700 council homes and a number of development sites earmarked for housing. But the report warns council leaders that even a fire sale of assets – everything the authority has other than roads and parks is said to be “on the table” – may not be enough and that financial support from the government for up to eight more. years. The poor state of Slough’s finances means local residents face potential council tax rises of between 12% and 20% in each of the next three years, the report says. Annual council tax increases are usually capped at 5%. Although Slough initially reported a £100m “black hole” in its budgets at the time of its Section 114 bankruptcy notice in July 2021, this rose to £480m as auditors went over the books. It has also borrowed £680m in recent years to fund a series of property developments. Officially responding to the report, local government minister Paul Scully said the “unprecedented” scale of the financial challenge in Slough meant “radical solutions may be required to ensure best value and sustainable service delivery for the people of Slough”. The Commissioner’s report describes a council reeling from years of disastrous investment decisions and leadership failures, which is now struggling to deliver even basic services as it struggles to recruit and retain staff. “Even at the best of times, managing such a small single authority would be very difficult, requiring the highest quality civilian and officer leadership and a degree of luck, hoping that nothing would go wrong. Unfortunately, this has not been the case in recent years,” the report says. The report attributes a number of financial failures in recent years to incompetence and willful mistakes on the part of officials, including overambitious lending, depletion of reserves and misuse of capital gains. “What is surprising is that no councilors seemed to notice,” the report says. It reveals senior council officials spent £2.8m on consultants with little local government experience to guide an administration restructure that was supposed to deliver £4m of savings. The ill-fated scheme, launched at the height of the lockdown, has instead increased costs by £1m and left the council short of key staff. The program was “totally unfit for purpose and resulted in the rapid destruction of officer capacity and capability with many now left in positions in which they had no experience and entire teams being dismissed that were essential to the provision of legitimate services” , the report states. . The commissioners’ report says many of the posts axed under the plan must now be recreated. There is only one permanent senior manager on the council, which relies heavily on staff from agencies, particularly children’s services, which have been in special measures for eight years. Former Slough chief executive Josie Wragg was sacked by commissioners in March for “gross negligence and reckless behaviour”. James Swindlehurst, the leader of Slough council, said: “The mistakes that got us to this position are clearly on display, but what is also clearer as we move forward is what we need to do to help put things right. We have always accepted the seriousness of our situation and the difficult decisions we have to make in the coming years.”
