An independent panel overseeing Bedford Borough Council’s recovery programme has warned there is an “optimism bias” in the authority’s improvement plans and said the pace of change must increase.
Yesterday’s Finance and Improvement Committee (Thursday, 14 May) heard that the Informal Independent Improvement and Assurance Panel believed the council’s aim of becoming “financially sustainable and resilient” should currently be rated red rather than amber.
Under the council’s Red-Amber-Green (RAG) monitoring system, projects are rated according to delivery timescales, resources, costs, and progress towards savings targets.
Red-rated actions trigger immediate escalation and enhanced scrutiny.
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The panel also warned there needed to be an “increase in the pace of delivery”, “rapid action” to strengthen the finance team and urgent work on balancing future budgets.
It also raised concerns about the council’s capacity to deliver improvements across corporate, children’s and adults’ services while also addressing its medium-term financial gap.
Concerning
Cllr Dylan Simmonds (Conservative, Bromham) said he found the panel’s findings concerning.
He said: “My concern then deepened when I read that delivery pace is lagging and must increase in this panel’s opinion.
“And then my concern turned into alarm when I read that one of the entire aims, aim three, had been, in their opinion, misreported as amber when really it should be red.
“Aim Three is a council that is “financially sustainable and resilient, with good practices embedded”.
“Why should this committee, these councillors, this council, have confidence in the current leadership’s grip on the pace of delivery to deal with the current financial problems?” he asked the council’s chief executive, Laura Church.
Ms Church replied: “I have confidence in my management team.”
The chief executive also told councillors the authority was deliberately being transparent about the concerns raised by the independent panel.
“Actually, they are helping us and [we are] being challenged, and that’s really important, she said.
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£1.718 million shortfall
Ms Church added that the panel had met the previous day again and had recognised progress made in recent weeks.
A separate report, Progress on Improvement Plan Savings, showed that the council is currently forecasting a £1.718 million shortfall against its £18.646 million savings target for 2026/27.
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The council’s savings dashboard showed that 17 per cent of planned savings are currently rated red and 44 per cent amber.
Cllr Simmons also asked the mayor what he is going to do to support portfolio holders and support officers in ramping up the “very important [challenges] to keep the council afloat”.
Mayor Tom Wootton acknowledged the scale of the challenge facing the authority, saying that it is “not going to be an easy process”.
“Anybody who thinks it is… is fooling themselves because there’s some really hard decisions to make over this summer as we go forward to getting our budget in order,” he said.
“We’re going to try our hardest to get some sort of [cross-party] agreement on things.
“I feel that we are chasing down more savings, but it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be a pleasant journey,” he said.
By John Guinn
Local Democracy Reporter
