A report published this week shows that Rushmoor Borough Council delivered a much better than forecast performance in its finances in the last year, with the latest figures showing that it drew more than £4 million less from its reserves than originally planned.
In addition, the council has stabilised its borrowing costs and made significant progress towards achieving the savings required for long-term financial sustainability, according to the report due to be considered by the Cabinet on Tuesday 8 July.
The council’s original 2024/25 budget, set in February 2024, projected a £5.4 million deficit for the year. The gap in expenditure was planned to be covered by service savings of £740,000 and by drawing £4.6 million from its reserves of £12.1million.
However, by the end of the financial year just ended, the council had made overall saving of £5.2 million, meaning that only £224,000 was needed from reserves – more than £4 million less than budgeted.
This is particularly good news as it means the council still has £10.9 million of useable reserves to support its financial recovery work.
In addition to service savings (£1.8 million), the other main saving (£1.3 million) was due to better than predicted costs of borrowing, attributed to improved management of the council’s £166 million debt by the recently strengthened finance team. The remaining savings came from various sources, including one-off savings.
Until recently the council’s borrowing was entirely repayable within one year, which exposed it to interest rate changes. Over the last year, it has taken opportunities to reborrow over longer periods to provide greater cost certainty.
The Cabinet will be told that the savings target of £1.8 million in this financial year’s budget (25/26) has already been met with £2.1 million of identified savings. These improvements are expected to support savings targets set for future years, with further work under way to identify the full impact.
The Leader of Rushmoor Borough Council, Councillor Gareth Williams, said: “Our first priority when we were elected was to address the precarious financial position that we inherited. Our financial position continues to be challenging, but we have made tremendous progress in just one year through careful financial management and scrutiny of how taxpayers’ money is spent.
“Being able to hold back more than £4 million of our reserves gives us more financial resilience and enables us to focus on delivering quality services to residents. I am particularly proud that we have achieved this without any reduction in service levels from those we inherited, and this gives us a sound platform to deliver on our other election pledges through our priority plans.”
Further details of the council’s accounts can be viewed in the Cabinet papers.
This report sets out the unaudited outturn position for 2024/25.
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