Slough council leader called to resign over damning accounts

Cllr James Swindlehurst (Lab: Cippenham Green) was called on to step down as leader or for his Labour Group to oust him as leader at a full council meeting on Thursday, March 9.

The plea was made by Independent councillor and former Labour member Madhuri Bedi (Foxborough) whilst debating the finalised 2018/19 accounts.

Due to missing information and inadequate bookkeeping, external auditors Grant Thornton gave an unprecedented ‘disclaimer of opinion’ rating, the worst grade a council’s accounts can get.

This type of opinion is issued when an auditor could not obtain sufficient or appropriate financial statements to draw their conclusion or support their opinion on the accounts.

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The council effectively declared bankruptcy in 2021. Along with a 9.99 per cent council tax increase, it also plans to sell up to £600m of assets to reduce its £760m debt.

Speaking at the meeting, Cllr Bedi said Slough went from a “vibrant town” to a “laughing stock”.

She said: “Do our residents deserve any of this? If this leadership had any decency, they would resign or if the leader’s supporters have any conscience left or any feeling for residents, they would remove their leader immediately.

“My dear residents, when voting, you may think you are voting for the Labour Party but in fact, you are voting for the Cllr Swindlehurst Party.”

Cllr Madhuri Bedi called for the leader to resign (Image: Slough Borough Council)

Meanwhile, Cllr Paul Kelly (Con: Haymill & Lynch Hill) said Cllr Swindlehurst was continually the lead member since 2017 and throughout the disaster the council has experienced.

Cllr Swindlehurst said there have been extraordinary procedural errors in recordkeeping, failures in competency in the finance department and at a senior officer level, and he reiterated he offered his resignation to the Labour Group but was told to oversee the council’s recovery.

He said: “I know why they [the opposition] want to keep rehearsing these issues, particularly as they have nothing else left and no rival offer to make, but the point is we have rehearsed them over and over again, and we’re 18 months into this council’s recovery.”

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The council leader also said he held no positions of responsibility until November 2017, adding: “I absolutely recognise as Cllr Kelly says that I am the leader of the council and have been responsible for all of the activities in this council as the lead politician in the period from 2018 to now.

“My administration has been re-elected twice at full elections since then. There is no denying we’re responsible; the public put us here and they voted for us twice.

“In a few weeks times, we have elections again and the public will have the chance to decide who they want to represent them.”