Warrington Council has rejected a number of findings from an independent review of its approach to budgetary control.
The external review came after a Local Government Association (LGA) corporate peer challenge amid concerns about the council’s finances.
Warrington plans to use £1.9m from reserves to balance its budget in 2020/21, leaving the council’s strategic reserve at £4.7m − between 3% and 5% of its net budget requirement.
In recent years, the council has overspent against its budget, often having to make up shortfalls through a combination of further additional income, financial changes or the use of one-off reserves.
The council has also attracted attention for a number of high-profile investments, which have included a £211m acquisition of a science and business park, £275m of loan facilities put in place with 10 housing associations, the £30m purchase of a 33% share in Redwood Bank and an £18m outlay for a 50% stake in an energy provider.
The original peer challenge conducted in March 2019 read: ‘Given the rapid growth of the scale and complexity of investment activity in Warrington, a dedicated external review of governance, monitoring, reporting, capacity, capability, process and risk is necessary to give the council ongoing assurance about their investment activity.’
Senior council officers are understood to have accepted some of the review’s proposals but it will not be published in full unless changes can be secured.
A council spokesman said: ‘We welcomed two LGA reviews in 2019 – a corporate peer challenge and a follow-up finance review – with a view to sharing best practice and learning from industry peers. We welcome scrutiny and constructive challenge and published the findings of the peer review challenge earlier in 2019.
‘The follow-up LGA finance review was useful, as it helped to validate our approach in some areas and gave us the opportunity to contemplate how we can make improvements in other areas.
‘We are still in the process of approving the final report and recommendations to ensure that both parties agree it is an accurate and realistic reflection. We will publish this report in due course once it has been finalised.’