Bulk of £3m 'savings' for Rugby Borough Council is actually extra income

Rugby Borough Council’s draft budget introduces almost £3 million worth of savings – but less than six per cent of that comes from efficiencies made by the authority.

Direct efforts by the council to reduce expenditure or halt aspects of spending total just £174,000. The vast majority of the rest comes from extra income and lower than expected prices.

Most of it – £2.167 million – comes from higher than anticipated levels of retained (£1.124 million) and pooled business rates (£300,000), a reduction in rates that the council pays on Rugby Art Gallery & Museum (£132,000) and a refund from the higher rate paid in the past (£611,000).

The council expects to pay 20 per cent – £83,000 – less for its gas across its cremation services and corporate property in the financial year 2024-25, while the government allowing fees for planning applications to rise by a quarter for minor applications and more than a third for bigger applications is set to raise another £150,000.

More than half of the £174,000 will come from reduced contractor spend in the streetscene and highways team plus other “minor savings across the (operations and traded services) portfolio”.

Getting rid of IT services that are no longer used, reduced pension costs and removing the budget for Caldecott Developments makes up the rest.

Alongside that, £334,000 worth of extra spend has been proposed.

That includes £113,000 for repairs to and maintenance of council buildings and car parks, while the authority expects to lose another £376,000 worth of income, including a £183,000 reduction in its expected revenue from car parking charges – that alone is more than the total figure for direct efficiency savings.

What is in the public domain now is the framework that councillors will build that detail around, more will emerge in February when the whole budget is set but most general fees and charges are proposed to go up by 6.7 per cent.

We asked Councillor Carolyn Robbins (Con, Coton & Boughton), the borough’s portfolio holder for finance, performance, legal and governance, whether the way the near-£3 million savings figure was presented could be seen as misleading.

“I don’t know, I always equate these things to household accounts,” she replied.

“When you have a bill coming in and it turns out to be less than you thought, it is a saving. If you stop doing something, you will save however much that was and that will also be a saving.

“Whichever way you look at it, it is saving money that you would have had to have spent and that is how it is presented in the council papers. It is saving the council money because that money does not have to be paid out.

“Some of it will have to be saved again next year, we will have to find different ways of saving money, we are well aware of that, but Rugby Borough Council is probably in one of the best financial positions of councils in this country.

“Yes, we do need to make savings and we have been preparing for those savings for several years.”

She remained tight-lipped on what was to come in February when politicians of the three major parties will weigh up and vote on how to spend the council’s cash but stressed the authority was able to put together a balanced budget.

“This is not the end of the process, there are still things to look at in areas of savings and growth and they will feature in the next report,” she added.

“We are in a sound financial position and we will continue forward in that way.”