Last-ditch funding boost from government causes split at Warwick District Council

Harmonious discussions over Warwick District Council’s budget took a twist over how to spend a last-ditch boost from government.

The Green-Labour coalition’s first set of spending plans since taking power last May, which kick in for the financial year starting in April, gained support from all sides this week until the arrival of a £173,400 uplift.

That was the extra that came from the government’s funding guarantee going up by four percent rather than three and it resulted in a challenge by the Liberal Democrats over how it should be used.

The Greens and Labour pushed £50,000 extra towards the council’s biodiversity action plan, £54,400 into playground repairs and £65,000 extra towards cost of living support.

The Lib Dems, who gained support from the Conservatives for their amendment, wanted to use £73,400 to help local groups build business cases for community energy schemes while putting £96,000 back into savings pools for future years.

All parties agreed to using £4,000 to support Armed Forces Day events.

While much of the debate centred around the potential community energy proposal, in particular how it would fit with the corporate strategy put forward by the Greens and Labour, the argument to save the £96,000 was perhaps most pertinent.

The district’s portion of council tax was put up by the maximum allowed – 2.99 percent, a little more than £5 per year for an average Band D property – to help cover the shortfall between inflation levels and the money coming forward from government grants.

The rise garnered cross-party backing and the council plans to apply it again in each of the next few years alongside a 10 per cent annual hike each to its fees and charges.

Alongside that, it aims to trim almost 20 per cent of its net service spend by March 2028 through its change programme which is set to be published next month.

While all of those adjustments are attempted to balance the books long term, £4.475 million is to be taken from reserves to plug the gap in 2024-25, prompting the case to keep hold of the £96,000.

Councillor Andrew Milton (Lib Dem, Kenilworth St John’s) said: “The unexpected windfall creates choices. It is really important to think about how we approach those.

“We could just come up with a list of stuff, things that people want to do. There is no shortage of stuff that people want to do across the district and there is actually nothing wrong with the list that has been put forward, they are all good things in their own right but it is about the approach.

“This gives us the opportunity to think about how we take forward some big things, how we could do some difficult things, not just some small incremental things.”

Councillor Richard Hales (Con, Kenilworth Abbey & Arden) added: “We are in unusual times with the way budgets are, we don’t know what additional money will come.

“Rather than spend the additional money that has come from government at once, my view is to put it back into the volatility fund so there is money there for future years.

“We don’t know where we will be in 12 months or what the economy will be like so it just gives us that option.”

Portfolio holder for resources Councillor Jonathan Chilvers (Green, Leamington Brunswick) had laid out in his introductory speech that wider financial constraints had meant the one-off cash would be used to boost existing projects rather than starting anything that could be hard to fund long-term.

When responding to the points raised, he added: “We deliberately avoided starting new things, we are trying to channel that money into things that we agree as an organisation that we want to deliver. We tried to choose those very carefully.”

Two Greens – Councillor Hema Yellapragada (Warwick Myton & Heathcote) and Councillor Lowell Williams (Kenilworth Park Hill) – broke ranks but the Lib Dem amendment was defeated by just four votes.

Once that was decided, most councillors got behind the original budget plans with Conservatives Jan Matecki and Peter Phillips (both Budbrooke) casting the only votes against.