‘Years of neglect’ and national challenges mean Slough Borough Council is on course to spend almost £32 million more than it can budget for in four years’ time, council chiefs have said.

Slough Borough Council is on course for an overspend of £31.9 million in the 2028-29 financial year – and £15 million this year. That’s according to a report presented to council leaders on Monday, July 15.

Conservative councillor Wal Chahal, responsible for finance, pinned the blame on Slough’s previous Labour leaders. He said that ‘years of neglect’ over council spending meant it would ‘take time to put things right'.

However Annabel Scholes – the council director in charge of finance – said Slough had to deal with financial challenges faced by local authorities across the country. These include increased costs in social care.

She said: “Some of these things that councillor Chahal has highlighted are national issues. They are things that we are seeing from colleagues in neighbouring authorities.”

The report – a review of council spending in years to come – was discussed by the leading group of councillors known as the cabinet on Monday.

When this year’s budget was set in March it included £10.4 million to address overspends in the previous year – mostly in adult social care and temporary accommodation.

But now the council has said costs in these areas have continued to rise – taking the additional money required up to £11.6 million.

On top of this the council says a review of this year’s spending plan has found an extra £4.19 million of extra costs it hadn’t originally budgeted for. These include new costs, higher than allowed-for inflation, and a realisation that some planned savings wouldn’t be possible.

Forecasts also suggest the council will need to find £21.6 million of savings next year, £22.7 million in 2026/27, and £30.1 million in 2027/28.

These figures are estimates meaning that they could change in future forecasts. The figure of £31.9 million in 2028-29 also doesn’t include any planned measures to bring costs down, which are likely to form parts of future budget plans.

The report to the cabinet says staff are looking at extra savings this year, which could cut costs by as much as £12 million. However, half of these are only ‘one-off’ savings meaning they won’t carry forward into reduced spending next year. Officers plan to give council leaders a more detailed report on these savings in September.

The predictions also assume that council tax will increase each year by 4.99 per cent.

Ms Scholes said council staff were ‘looking at absolutely every option’ to bring the overspend down.

Commissioners sent in by the government to oversee the council after it declared bankruptcy in 2021 said the potential scale of the challenge ‘cannot be underestimated'.