Staff at Swindon Borough Council have been warned only to spend money if it’s absolutely essential. 

A message from the council’s chief executive officer Sam Mowbray, to staff, which has been seen by the Local Democracy Reporter says the council is predicting a £10m overspend on its revenue budget – its day-to-day spending on services – by the end of the financial year.

That’s an increase on the £9.1m reported at the September cabinet meeting.

Ms Mowbray’s message says: “The council’s financial position is extremely challenging, with a forecast overspend on the general fund for this year.

“it’s not an option to rely on reserves, so we must all take action now to reduce what we are spending

“I cannot stress enough the difficulty we are in financially.”

As a consequence, Ms Mowbray says there can be no relaxation on the purse strings: “We need to reinforce existing spending controls and implement stricter in-year controls, which will be in place for the rest of the financial year when we will review again.”

Ms Mowbray directs staff to a page on the council’s intranet where measures to control and monitor spending are set out.

She then continues: “The ask of you now is to take this seriously and really challenge yourself around the essential nature of any spending decisions.

“If this was your household budget you would reduce your spend according to your household position.

“It is vital that we all do the same with the council’s budgets.”

The message to staff is in line with the council’s external messaging about its financial position but perhaps puts it in starker terms.

It should be noted that it is not unusual, over the past several years, for there to have been a very significant projected overspend on the revenue budget at this time of year, but a £10m projected pressure is larger than most.

Most of the potential overspending would be from the adults and children’s services departments.

At September’s cabinet meeting, the member for finance Councillor Kevin Small presented a report which said adults’ services were predicting a £2.46million over-run while children’s services were projected to go £4.34m over its £67.8m budget for the year.

Together adults’ and children’s services budget make up nearly 85 per cent of the budget of £178,860,000 for this financial year.

Such services are a statutory duty for local authorities and vitally important.