Quarter two finance update

The most up-to-date report into the council’s finances will be heard at a Cabinet meeting on 17 November. 

The Quarter 2 budget management report, for July to September, highlights the current financial position and level of overspend, along with measures proposed to urgently tackle this. 

While the council has made significant steps in financial recovery by finalising and closing past year accounts for 2023/24 and 2024/25, there is still much work to do to achieve a balanced budget for this financial year and to reduce expenditure. 

Currently, the revenue budget overspend for 2025/26 is projected to be £17.5m due to continuing pressure on budgets and high-demand services. Some mitigations have been found to reduce this from a £25m overspend. 

The main elements of the overspend are:
• Temporary Accommodation & Housing Benefit - £15m
• Adults Services - £5m 
• Children’s Services - £1.7m
• Regeneration, Housing and Environment (RHE) - £2.9m  

With a high proportion of the projected overspend in temporary accommodation, the housing service is reviewing all practices to find efficiencies and reduce spending, where possible, while still providing this essential service to some of the most vulnerable people at a difficult time in their lives. 

The council provides services to more than 2,800 homeless households that are at various stages in the homelessness process, including more than 1,300 in temporary accommodation. 

A report on temporary accommodation will also be discussed at Cabinet, to approve the Summary Homeless and TA Service Improvement Plan.

Key actions within the housing service to manage the cost of temporary accommodation, will focus on preventing households from becoming homeless in the first place, in acquiring properties to discharge families into permanently and significantly increasing the rate at which families are helped to move out of temporary accommodation.

Across the council, measures are being put in place to curb expenditure, including an agency and interim staff review and reduction, non-essential recruitment freeze, review of third-party contracts, optimising facility usage, deferring non-critical maintenance and accelerating fees and charges increases.

Councillor Puja Bedi, deputy leader and lead member for finance, said: “High-demand services such as adult social care, children’s social care and temporary accommodation remain areas of overspend in Slough, as well as nationally. 

“Councils across the country have suffered years of funding cuts from central government and we are not being funded as we need. Alongside this, we can only claim back approximately about 34% of Housing Benefit subsidy on our costs. If we could claim back more, it would reduce our costs significantly.  

“We continue to look for ways to manage the spending in all departments and to keep within the budgets available. 

“We have introduced stricter spending control measures, implemented a recruitment freeze immediately and are looking if there are any efficiencies to be made within existing contracts.

“We remain committed to ensuring our financial situation is manageable this year, and everyone in the council has their part to play, particularly as we head towards the budget setting process for 2026/27.”

Find the Cabinet papers on the council’s website.