SLOUGH’S children’s company has asked for millions of pounds from a cash-strapped council as it sees a slash in government funding.

The Department for Education will reduce its £1.4m grant funding to the council wholly-owned company Slough Children’s First (SCF).

Slough Borough Council, which effectively declared bankruptcy in 2021 and needs to make about £20m savings a year, could foot this blackhole.

Finance officer Peter Robinson, who helps manage SCF’s budget, told councillors sitting on the people scrutiny panel: “The company will still need to spend a similar amount of money in terms of its staffing.

“They are proposing that the £1.4m comes across to the council in terms of funding to absorb the pressure.”

READ MORE: Slough's children's services will see £1.4m government cut

SCF is facing a £3.9 growth pressure for 2023/24 and has further requested for ‘invest to save’ funding of £1.3m to make future savings. SCF is also proposing £1.14m of savings for the upcoming financial year.

The projected £3.9m pressure accounts for the loss of the government grant and its assumed overspend. However, a government-commissioned report by Mutual Ventures probed into the company’s draft five-year business plan, which sets out how it will improve its services, governance, and finances.

It suggested this pressure should be £6.9m instead because the plan ‘understated’ inflation, the proposed savings were ‘optimistic’, and the SCF’s plans for implementation were ‘not clearly set out’.

SCF, which was previously known as Slough Children’s Services Trust before the council took it over in 2021, has historically overspent its budget.

Accumulating its overspends from 2016 to 2022, it totals £22.5m. The company has been in danger of liquidation a few times – with directors writing to the council twice in 2022 about this potentially happening.

SCF is also requesting the council for the council to increase its £31.7m contract by £10m, which represents a 32 per cent rise and is more than Mutual Venture’s £6.9m suggestion.

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This £10m increase request arises from the government funding slash but also from inflation, a £5.1m for 2022/23, and increasing demand.

If agreed by councillors, this £41.7m contract would represent the largest directorate budget in Slough Borough Council, which would represent approximately 40 per cent of the local authority’s bet funding before children’s services.

Mr Robinson said: “It is unusual for a unitary [authority]. Usually, it is the adult’s budget that is the bigger budget.

“Part of that is because of the demographics of Slough because 25 per cent of Slough’s population is under 15.”

Elsewhere at Tuesday’s meeting, the council is proposing to deliver £5.6m in savings for the adult social care directorate and over one million pounds in children’s services.