The Government's change in policy to the financial settlement is understandable, with a redistribution of funding to local authority areas of greater deprivation. Especially so, if this can help to tackle deep rooted inequalities within populations, which is itself key to increasing community cohesion in the longer term. The depth of change in the approach is of concern though, with what can be seen as ‘winners' and ‘losers' and many local authorities falling somewhere in-between.
For Wokingham BC, the anticipated three year financial settlement will amount to the worst local government settlement we have ever received. So we have a challenge on our hands, but in many ways we believe we are well placed to meet it. We are currently on a stable financial footing, and will apply our strategies and learning from achieving the £30m savings we've made over the past three years.
