Slough Borough Council has approved plans to restructure its finance department to enhance capacity and capability and to address a “significant weakness” in the function.
The local authority has been heavily reliant on interim staff within its core financial team as only approximately 50% of staff within the department are permanent employees of Slough Borough Council.
A finance department restructure report presented to the council’s cabinet on 20 June set out proposals to place staff in more permanent roles.
The report outlined proposals to hire six new officers, which include two deputy directors – with one overseeing financial management and the other (the deputy s151) covering strategic and corporate finance. These two deputy director posts will replace the associate director of finance and commercial role.
The restructure was originally recommended in October 2021 by CIPFA in a local government finance review, which highlighted the need to improve the financial capacity of the authority.
Cllr Rob Anderson, cabinet member for financial oversight and council assets, said at the cabinet meeting this week: ‘The CIPFA report and external auditors all showed that we had a significant weakness in our finance function, and we needed to address that as a matter of priority.”
The council has debt of £760m and has been in financial difficulty for some time. In July, the newly appointed (interim) director of finance, Steven Mair, issued a section 114 notice.
The CIPFA report and external auditors all showed that we had a significant weakness in our finance function, and we needed to address that as a matter of priority.
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Unsustainable staffing levels
The finance department restructure report said: “The current levels of permanent staffing are not sustainable and are potentially impacting the health and well-being of the team and the council’s ability to recruit and retain staff.”
The report also outlined that recruiting new staff would “bring greater leadership, direction and capability to the (financial) function and organisation”.
Anderson added: “The restructure will give us not just capacity but capability within the finance function, so that the things that we know have gone wrong in the last couple of years aren’t repeated.
“To get us in a position where we are no longer firefighting, but actually that we are making proactive and sensible decisions in taking the council forward.”
£600m of asset sales
In the same meeting, the cabinet discussed a report to sell half of its £1.2bn in assets to ensure the council’s financial sustainability in the near future.
The report said: “A phased asset disposal programme could realise capital receipts in the region of £600m over the next five years to finance Capitalisation Directions, repay external loans and reduce borrowing to sustainable levels by 1 April 2027.”
It laid out plans to set up a new cabinet committee, which would carry out the sale of any property valued at £1m or more.
Both reports follow a section 25 report issued in March 2022, and the sacking of the chief executive for gross misconduct also in March 2022.
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