Before I was a Cllr, or even an ex-Cllr, I didn’t really care about the RBWM budget. Why would I? I’d just pay the bill on a monthly basis and that would be that. I wouldn’t have questioned it or argued about it with some political activists on social media.
Far more interested in who the New Windsor Eagles were playing on Sunday 😉 My son played football and I was a coach 20 years ago! Not that I knew much about football but I enjoyed the experience while it lasted, as I did learning about being a local Cllr.
Reading a post on social media this morning talking about the price of the football pitches essentially doubling to make sure the budget balances it reminded me of the youth football and would I have been happy to come to the match with £1 in my pocket to pay my son’s share of the pitch fees for the game? Of course I would…
The budget is like a game of football. There are rules that govern it and you can try your best, have the most detailed match plan but still get beaten!
As a Cllr I got tuned into how the budget process works, it’s part of the job to find out how and ask logical questions. The fact that the opposition can do what they like and completely ignore your suggestions didn’t phase me. I saw it as my job to ask questions on behalf of residents because I knew most of the residents didn’t really care about the process, they’re just happy to pay the bill, assuming there is some kind of logic in play.
My role was to demonstrate there was very little logic and hope residents recognised the poor management and voted in a new team for the following season… they did. Mission accomplished.
The price of the pitch hire has doubled and so based on the assumption that 80% parents will happily just pay the extra money needed, it can. It also means that the burden of “balancing the budget” is reduced.
Same with car parking. Add a hefty margin because you can say X m cars parked in WIndsor this last year generated £ Y m so assuming they all return cos it is Windsor darling, then we now have £ Z m and the burden to balance is further reduced.
BUT park at Victoria Street Car Park and you are greeted by a dozen homeless people camping out in the foyer. Now at 6’2” and the best part of 20 stone, I’m not that intimidated by the crowd but the smell of urine and dope does irritate me. I can totally understand why older people will be reluctant to park there and something should be done…
BUT if the council acts, then they have to follow the law and it all gets very complicated and expensive and RBWM doesn’t have any spare money so it is caught between a rock and a hard place. Many have been rehoused before but then drifted back, unable to live by the rules in “normal” society. You are probably saying “tough, they need to respect other people”. If it were so simple then we’d not have an issue with homeless people and folk would be looked after until they could get “back on their feet”. We wouldn’t need the likes of “Windsor Homeless Project” but thank goodness they do what they do. Here’s a rad idea, go give them £1…
Morally it is unfair that residents paying their council tax can’t feel safe parking in Victoria Street and ideally we’d have a space for the homeless which gave them what they needed so our mothers and grandmothers could enjoy their shopping experience.
Yesterday I had an interview with a journalist from The Sun about the Ferris Wheel planned for Alexandra Gardens. The budget seems to suggest RBWM are hoping for £40,000 back into the coffers from this project. It made me think, if all Windsor residents had put in £1 then this could have been avoided. I’m not keen on the idea but the poll I conducted showed a slight majority against granting planning permission. Sadly, the application was passed by the majority of councillors on the planning panel, against the wishes of the Windsor & Eton Society who put many volunteer hours into trying to protect Windsor & Eton against poor decision making.
Why are we ruining the vista of Alexandra Gardens for £1 a resident? Surely we can do better business deals than that? Or is it that the £40k simply balances the budget, so was enough… RBWM have failed on this and should’ve called in the Sugarmyster, done a TV deal and made £1m in royalties 😉
I bumped into one of the Community Wardens yesterday attempting to retrieve a child’s ball from the bandstand roof. I saw these guys & gals as a perfect solution to the lack of Policing but sadly there are only 4 left in RBWM. I’d happily pay more than £1 pound to support these guys.
I was reassured to see in the budget that RBWM will be asking questions of those residents who take advantage of their situation and will be recouping the funding. I heard someone talking about their child being granted funding for their education which included money for taxis to get to school. They thought it was OK to pocket the cash and drive their child to the school instead of giving it to a taxi driver. It’s not OK. It’s not your money, it belongs to all residents and it’s thinking like that which is damaging the financial position of the council.
I noted some funding coming in for our CCTV systems. I know Thames Valley Police are interested in joining the dots with different town systems and it makes sense to generate revenue from this but it looked like a very poultry sum of £45k.
It’s like the advertising on street furniture. A sum of £15k is in the budget, which I am convinced has been sitting there, promising to deliver for a few years but obviously hasn’t. If we had some business brains on this, surely it would be more like £150k by now?
The RBWM finance officers’ job is to balance the £100m budget.
It doesn’t have to actually balance at the end of the year, we’re over £5m shy this year which will be taken into next year’s budget and things will be juggled until they can’t juggle anymore and a Section 114 notice will be issued.
This will essentially result in permission to up the budget by 10% or 20% so the job can be done properly…
Under normal circumstances, the law only allows councils to up the standard budget by circa 3% a year.
You can attend in person or watch, on Youtube, the Draft Budget presentation to Cabinet at 7pm next Tuesday which will be agreed by cabinet and then Cllrs will share their concerns at Full Council.
I used to think it was a debate but you can only speak once and so it’s not a debate, simply a presentation of your thoughts on the matter.
Before being adopted as the Budget for 2024-25.
Thank you.
Jon
