AN OPPOSITION councillor was ‘astonished’ at a lead member’s remarks over ‘significant changes’ to the council’s spending.

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead is due to end the 2021/22 financial year with a £2.3m underspend on services, according to the draft outturn report.

This is an increase of £2.1m from what was reported two months ago. Cllr David Hilton (Con: Ascot & Sunninghill), lead member for finance, said this ‘significant change’ is great news for council services but not so good for financial control.

This was mainly accounted for by last-minute one-off grants, year-end savings, and Covid’s legacy impact on services.

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Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Thursday, May 27, Cllr Hilton said this “hiccup” should not occur again after the council completes the implementation of a new business partner in post to give further clarity on financial reports and greater financial support for services.

However, Cllr John Baldwin (Lib Dem: Belmont) said: “£2.162m in two months is far more than just a hiccup. It’s a sign of a failure in control and reporting.”

Cllr Hilton pinned this down to the council having interim accountants and not fully understanding services causing some things to “slip through” but are putting resources to ensure this does not happen in the future.

Meanwhile, council leader Andrew Johnson (Con: Hurley & Walthams) blamed the legacy of Covid impacting services that is making forecasting accurately tricky. Chief finance officer Adele Taylor added the council was given government grants on short notice, making it hard to predict the council’s final financial outturn.

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But Cllr Baldwin said it was an “astonishing” for Cllr Hilton to “blithely” say things just slipped through.

Cllr Johnson answered on Cllr Hilton’s behalf and said the lead member finance has delivered an underspend for the third consecutive year and has put more money into reserves.

He said: “I think we can give Cllr Hilton some significant credit for getting us in this position of again underspending by not an insignificant amount during a very challenging year.”